


The Tale of Tsarevich Ivan Watovich and the Bird of Flame

by RosiePaw



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-28 14:48:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosiePaw/pseuds/RosiePaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tsar and his family may or may not be cursed.  The tsarevich may be on a quest to defeat a sorcerer - or he may just be trying to find someone to marry.  The only certainty is that Ivan Watovich's life is about to change forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am neither Russian nor British, and my Scottish connections are distant and disputable. I apologize in advance to any readers who feel that I've butchered their language and/or culture.

Once upon a time there was a vast empire inhabited by many different peoples who spoke many different tongues.  Thus, its ruler was known by many of his subjects as Tsar Watt Yakovlevich, by many others as Emperor Watt Jameson and by some – who lived mainly in the mountains in the north and west of the country – as Bhatair mac Sheumais àrd-righ.

It was the custom of this empire that whoever would sit upon the imperial throne must be married.  Watt Yakovlevich had married as young man and ascended the throne on his father’s death.  He was a bold and popular ruler, and his lovely tsaritsa gave him two fine children, the Tsarevna Harrieta Watovna and the Tsarevich Ivan Watovich.  The years went by and the children grew.  The day came when an embassy arrived from a foreign land, bringing with it a portrait of the Prinzessin Clara von Niemetz and a proposal of a mutually beneficial trade treaty.  Upon seeing the portrait, the young tsarevna fell deeply in love.  Her father gave Harrieta and Clara his blessing, a fine country estate and, in hopes of continuing the succession, four dozen strapping young footmen.

Once the tsarevna became qualified to succeed to the throne, the tsarevich applied to his father for permission to join the imperial forces.  Moreover, he begged to be allowed to join not as a high officer but as a mere captain, that he might prove himself to the troops and win their loyalty on his own merit.  The tsar indulgently gave his permission, and the tsarevich left the same day to join the forces at war in the mountains along the southern border.

Thus began one of the happiest periods in the young tsarevich’s life.  Often bored at court, he found new purpose amidst the dust and blood of the battlefield.  He learned quickly that there is little glory to be found there, but he had never yearned for glory.  Rather, his heart and spirit were nourished by the camaraderie of the troops, where men fought side by side and spurred each other on to greater acts of courage.  Captain Ivan Watovich became known as an officer who took good care of his men and who would never ask them to do anything he would not do himself.  They followed him into battle with high hearts.

Ivan Watovich had been with the imperial forces for five years when one day, a crow flew into the tent where he and his men sat breaking their fast.  A young soldier named Wigginsky chased the crow out, but it flew back in.  One of the sergeants, Uilleam an t-Moireach, got to his feet and chased the crow out a second time, but again it flew back in.  It landed among the maps spread out on the table before the tsarevich and began to peck at them.  At this, Ivan himself got to his feet and chased the crow out of the tent.  As he waved his arms to drive the bird away, the crow circled his head three times, cawing loudly.  Finally it flew away.

The men whispered among themselves, believing the bird to be a bad omen.  “Come on,” said the tsarevich to hearten them, “We’ve fought enemies far more fearsome and won!  Will you be scared of a bird?”

But an t-Moireach shook his head and said nothing.

The battle that day went badly from the first.  A fierce, hot wind that filled the air with sand and dust, so that the sun looked pale and sickly.  The regiment of which Ivan and his men were part was to attack from the east, eventually meeting another regiment attacking from the west, but their maps were inaccurate and they encountered the enemy before they looked to do so.  Still they pushed onward, not wanting to fail their fellow soldiers.  Too late their scouts brought the news that the other regiment had already fallen and that the entire main force of the enemy would soon be upon them.  The commanders order that the retreat be sounded.

The men began to retreat in good order, but then the new enemy forces arrived and all semblance of order disintegrated.  Amidst the chaos, Ivan and his men held together as a unit, fighting a fierce defense as they retreated to safety.  Suddenly young Wigginsky cried out as his horse stumbled and fell, its leg broken where it had stepped in a hole.  Almost immediately, one of the enemy bore down upon him, a huge brute of a man swinging an enormous mace.  Ivan charged forward to block the mace’s fall with his sword, but the sword broke.  He took the full impact of the mace upon his shoulder, where it burst the links of his chainmail.  Its spikes drove through his leather shirt, deep into the flesh beneath. 

As the enemy soldier swung again, Ivan attempted to swerve out of the way but his shoulder wound impeded him.  The blow fell upon his horse instead, causing the animal to rear.  The tsarevich was flung to the ground, and then the horse fell on top of his legs.  He would have been dead except that Uilleam an t-Moireach reached him in time to throw him on the back of an t-Moireach’s horse and carry him to safety.

As the imperial forces licked their wounds, doctors fought to save the tsarevich’s life.  His wounded shoulder became inflamed and feverish.  In his delirium, he cried out over and over from the pain in his leg, but the bone was whole and the doctors could find no injury.  When Ivan’s fever finally broke and his shoulder appeared to be healing cleanly, the doctors declared that they had done all that could be done in a field hospital.  The tsarevich was still too weak to ride, so his men constructed a litter.  Uilleam an t-Moireach chose six others to accompany him in bringing the tsarevich home, and they began the long journey north.

They had travelled hardly a third of the way when they met messengers from the imperial capital, riding south with news for Ivan Watovich.  His mother, the tsaritsa, had been taken suddenly with vomiting and fever the very day he had fallen in battle.  She had died that night.

***

The party continued northwards, making what speed they could but hampered by the litter and by the need to make a full camp every night for the tsarevich’s sake.  Each night the men erected their captain’s tent and made sure his bedroll had enough padding.  They gathered extra firewood that he might be kept warm and prepared gruels and soups over their campfires that he might eat even though hard bread and dried meat were beyond his strength.  They watched over him when nightmares made him cry out in his sleep.

By the time they reached the imperial capital, Ivan had recovered enough to sit a horse for short periods, although his shoulder still pained him and his leg was still lame. He rode at the head of his men into a changed city, where the buildings were draped with mourning black and people muttered together in the streets, making signs to avert evil.

At the palace, the tsar stood waiting to greet his son, looking old and worn.  He had yet more bad news: the Prinzessin Clara had returned to her own country and had her marriage annulled.

Now, it had long been widely known that a love for fine wines and strong vodka was common in the imperial line in general and in the Tsarevna Harrieta Watovna in particular.  From the first, Clara had made no secret of her disapproval of this tendency, but she had done so with gentleness and affection, so that the tsar and tsarevich had hoped she might eventually lead Harrieta to more sober habits.

However, there were others at court who were not pleased at the prospect that a foreigner should one day rise to be tsaritsa.  It was all too easy for them to provide the tsarevna with merry companions who encouraged her in continuing to drink.  They openly mocked Clara’s attempts at persuasion and suggested that only a fool would be moved by them.  Meanwhile, a series of poor harvests had exposed flaws in the trade treaty that had been part of the marriage negotiations.  Clara’s detractors were quick to advertise these.

Then the former tsaritsa died suddenly.  Without a wife, the tsar was no longer deemed qualified to rule and Clara’s rise to the throne became imminent.  Her enemies unleashed a campaign of rumours and even open accusations, claiming that she had poisoned the tsaritsa.  Clara looked to her spouse for support, but Harrieta was busy drowning her grief in the way most familiar to her.  Instead of support, she responded with drunken anger.

Beset from all sides, Clara had finally had enough.  The marriage had not been performed according to the rites of her homeland.  It would be easy enough for her to have it annulled there.  She had packed her personal jewels and belongings, gathered together those courtiers and servants still loyal to her and ridden out, heading for the border.

Harrieta had not been seen to be sober since.  It was open talk in the streets of the capital that perhaps the end had come to the imperial line, since there was now no one qualified to rule.

“Welcome home, my son,” said the tsar to Ivan.  “Our family is cursed, but at least we can all be cursed together.”  Then he laughed, and his laughter was bitter and crazed.

***

As the tsarevich rested and healed in his chambers, his men went abroad and returned with news.  Rumours swirled through the streets of the capital like clouds of noxious, oily fumes and escaped the city gates to spread across the countryside.  The nobles were restless.  The common folk were scared.

When the court physicians declared that Ivan was as recovered as he was likely to get, he asked his father and sister for an audience.  They met in the tsar’s private chambers, behind the great hall with its black draperies and empty throne, well aware that the tsar’s advisors waited just outside the closed doors – or possibly, listened at the keyholes.

“I know things look bad, but this isn’t the end,” argued Ivan, “Harrieta is still a young and fine-looking woman, she can marry again...”

“What royal or even noble family would sacrifice one of their children to the curse that lies upon us?” interrupted the tsar.

“Father, we don’t know that there’s a curse, it could all just be a coincidence of events.  And Harrieta doesn’t need to marry someone of royal or noble blood, she just needs to marry.”

“Hold on there, Vanya!  I don’t see _you_ volunteering to marry a commoner!  Why should I?” demanded Harrieta.

Ivan took a deep breath and got a grip on his temper.  “Fine, Hashen’ka.  I never wanted the throne, but if that’s the way it is, _I_ will marry a commoner.  Maybe I’ll find an especially _clever_ commoner who’ll figure out how to lift this curse, if there _is_ a curse, which...”

Harrieta pulled a bottle of vodka out from the folds of her skirts.  “And maybe when I pull the stopper out of this bottle, it will release a djinn such as the Arabian traders tell of and the djinn will grant me a wish!”  She yanked the stopper out, and they all stared at the bottle.  After a moment, Harrieta sneered, “So much for ‘maybes’,” and slugged back a drink of vodka straight from the bottle.

Ivan and Watt both winced.

“It is a brave offer, my son,” intoned Watt gloomily, “But the nobles are already restless.  For now they watch each other, waiting to see who will make the first move.  But if word gets out that we plan to set a commoner beside you on the throne, they will unite and rise against us.”

“Then we can’t let word get out.  I must do my courting alone.  I’ll be one more soldier, home from the wars, looking to marry and settle down.” 

“And whomever marries you will be marrying a lie, Vanya,” Harrieta pointed out with some venom.

“Erm, well, ah...  Of course, I’ll tell them.”

“And if they run away screaming and tell all their friends?”

“I’ll tell them _after_.”

Harrieta took another slug of vodka in eloquent silence.

Watt glared at his daughter.  “Any commoner would be happy to marry the tsarevich!”

“And perhaps the sort of person who’d be willing to marry a partly crippled ex-soldier wouldn’t mind finding out that instead they’d married a possibly cursed tsarevich,” Ivan offered.  “If there _is_ a curse, which there may not be.”

“I still say it’s a hell of a way to start a marriage, brother.”

“If you know so much about marriages, sister, why did your _wife_...”

“Enough!” roared Watt.  “More to the point, how do we get Ivan out of the capital without being discovered, and how do we answer the questions that will be raised about his absence?”

“I’m still recovering from my injuries, I could take a turn for the worse...”

“Oh, no, Vanya,” said Harrieta with a grin, “Listen up.”

“Hashen’ka,” Ivan said wearily, “it’s hardly past noon and you’ve had three bottles of vodka.”

“Yes, brother, that’s true.  But I also have a plan.”

***

The imperial heralds rode out the next day with a proclamation.  The tsarevich and his trusted men were to ride on a quest to discover and defeat the sorcerer who had cast the curse.  He was expected to return within a year and a day.  In his absence, all lords and ladies of high degree were called on to swear a sacred oath, to the tsar in person or to one of his proxies, that they would support the current imperial line against would-be usurpers.

Caught by surprise, none of them yet ready to risk open defiance, the high nobility complied, although some with more grace than others.  Those who could, travelled to the capital for the prestige of swearing their oaths to the tsar in person.  The trickle of first arrivals swelled to a flood over the next several days.

***

Ivan Watovich stood to one side of the tsar’s throne, watching as the last batch of nobles came forward one by one to swear their oaths, remembering all too well why he’d tried to escape the tedium of court life for the battlefield.  Still, he did his best to look brave and determined.  Harrieta Watovna stood to the other side, doing her best to look reasonably sober.  They avoided eye contact.  Past incidents had proven that accidentally making eye contact caused them both to break down in giggles.

An elderly boyar from Grud’gorod knelt to make his oath.  As he rose to his feet – with some difficulty – he spoke out in a carrying voice.  “If I may be so bold, Your Majesty, when does the tsarevich ride forth?”   

“He rides from the western gate this very night, before the dawn breaks upon tomorrow,” replied the tsar equally loudly.  “He is so eager to be gone, he will not wait for the sun.”  Murmurs ran among those gathered in the hall.

Despite the dark and early hour, a good-sized crowd had gathered at the western gate by the time the armed troupe rode forth.  Some in the crowd carried torches.  The dancing, flickering flames were not much help in picking out the men’s faces, particularly given the chainmail coifs and helmets they all wore.  Still, there was no mistaking the tsarevich, sitting straight (if not very tall) upon a magnificent horse.  His gleaming chainmail and the jewels in the hilt of his sword caught the torchlight.  Many a maiden and not a few youths in the crowd sighed to watch him ride by.  

On the other side of the capital, a lone man slipped quietly out the eastern gate.  His clothes were such as a gentleman of modest means might wear, of decent enough quality but not at all striking in appearance.  His sword bore a plain hilt and a sharp edge.  He carried a pair of battered saddle bags and a walking stick of carved apple wood.

Outside the gate, a dun gelding stood already saddled, its reins tied to a tree.  A casual observer would not have known that the gelding was, in fact, the finest horse in the tsar’s stables whose appearance did not advertise its quality.  The observer would not have seen that beneath his shirt, the gentleman wore a signet ring bearing the tsar’s seal upon a chain.  Wrapped in an old shirt in one of his saddle bags was a case of jewels – to be precise, every piece of jewellery that the Tsarevna Harrieta Watovna had given to her wife during their marriage.

“She left ‘em all behind, Vanya,” Harrieta had slurred.  “Might as well use ‘em for food and lodging along the way.  Get ‘em out of my sight.”

The walking stick had been a gift from Uilleam an t-Moireach, who professed not to know the meaning of the characters carved upon it.  “My grandfather was the oldest of seven sons.  The youngest had no children of his own.  He left this to me when he died, and that’s all I know about it.  Luck be with you, Iain mac Bhatair mec Sheumais.”

Ivan Watovich strapped the saddlebags and the stick securely onto the gelding’s gear, untied the reins from the tree and swung up into the saddle.  A stiff wind blew from the north, and he’d already had enough of the south.  He set out eastwards, riding to meet the rising sun.

***

Uilleam an t-Moireach’s clan was happy to see him again and pleased to host his comrades in arms.  They gained much laughter from the tale of young Wigginsky, who had not only had his life saved by the tsarevich but had even got to _be_ the tsarevich, at least for the time it took to ride out of sight and earshot of the capital’s western gate.

After a couple of months, the men began slipping back into capital by ones and twos, without any fuss at all.


	2. Chapter 2

For several days, Ivan Watovich rode east along the main road, following wherever it might lead him.  On the twenty-first day, however, he came to a fork in the road.  One branch led somewhat north of east, one branch led somewhat south, and each of them looked as wide and well-used as the other.

Along the road on the northern side stood a small house, no more than a cabin, really.  Behind the house was a small field of rye, well-grown and heavy-headed.  In the field stood a plump man with a scythe, just beginning to harvest the rye.  Seeing the stranger on a dun gelding stop and study the fork, the man called out, “Hello, friend!  Do you need directions?”

Ivan dismounted and led the gelding – which he had taken to calling Bezimyan – to the side of the road, leaning on him for balance.  “I might, friend, for I cannot tell which road is the main one.”

“It depends on what you’re looking for.  My name’s Misha, by the way.  Mikhail Mikhailovich Kamen’brodsky.”

“Vanya,” and here Ivan hesitated.  Ivan was a common name and Watovich not so uncommon, but he needed a surname, for the imperial family did not use them.  “Ivan Watovich Stolitsky.”

“Is Stolitsky just your family’s name or do you really come from the capital?  I’ve heard a story that the tsarevich has ridden out on a quest to find a sorcerer!”

“That’s true enough and no mere story.”

“Well, good luck to him.  Now if he were on a quest to find a spouse, I might be able to help him, for I’m well-known as the best matchmaker for leagues around,” bragged Misha.

“Are you, then?  I’ve a mind to marry, myself,” Ivan confided.

“And what kind of wife would you be looking for?  Or would you be looking for a husband instead?”

 Ivan blinked, not having looked to be faced with this question quite yet.  “My father,” he said slowly, “Would be pleased if I married a princess.”

“Fathers,” shrugged Misha, “They all want princesses for their sons.  Look, I need to get this rye harvested.  Give me a hand with it and then I’ll see what I can do for you.”  And he watched Ivan closely, as if to see whether the gentleman was offended at the request.

But Ivan only felt embarrassed as he explained, “I can’t handle a scythe, not with my leg, but I can follow behind you and bundle the rye.”

“Fair enough,” said Misha.

So Ivan tied Bezimyan to a birch tree behind the house, unstrapped his walking stick and began to follow behind Misha in the field, gathering the cut rye into bundles and tying them off.  The day was fine and warm, the work hot and sweaty.  Ivan’s leg throbbed with pain ever more insistently, but he worked without complaint.

When the last stand of rye was finally cut and bundled and the bundles stowed away in the hay barn to await threshing, Misha declared, “There’s a job well-done!  Come up to my house and drink kvass with me, Vanya Stolitsky.”  So they sat on the porch of the house and drank kvass, and Ivan thought he’d never had a drink so delicious.

“Your father wants a princess, but what do you want?  Fair to look at, everyone wants that whether in a wife _or_ a husband.  But would you be looking for clever as well?  And would you mind a sharp tongue?”

“Sounds to me as if you already have someone in mind, Misha Kamen’brodsky,” said Ivan, amused.

“I might at that.  Finish your kvass and rest a while, I’m not throwing you out.  But when you’re ready to leave, take this sack of unground rye and ride along the northern branch until you come to the village of Svyatoy Varfolomeyevsk.  When you get there, ask for Mariya Tobyevna Bocharova.  Give her the sack of rye and listen closely to what she says.”

“That’s what I’ll do.  Thank you.”

***

It was already late in the afternoon by the time Ivan rode out again along the northern branch of the road.  The road carried him over rolling hills, past meadows and through woods.  The sun began to set and there was still no village in sight.

Where a stream crossed the road, Ivan turned Bezimyan aside and rode slowly along it until he came to a patch of meadow with surrounded by trees.  Here he dismounted and made camp.  Having allowed Bezimyan to drink enough but not too much from the stream, Ivan tied him off to a tree where he might graze on meadow grass.  Ivan always carried flint and steel on his person, and fallen branches gathered from the woods made for a merry fire.

He spread his bedroll and supped on bread and cheese that Misha had given him for the road, washed down with a skin of kvass.  He didn’t fear to sleep, for his habit was to sleep lightly.  He knew that Bezimyan would whicker and wake him at the first scent of an intruder.  So he laid his sheathed sword alongside his bedroll, then lay back and began to count the stars until sleep should claim him.

There was a man standing in the meadow in the dark, wielding some kind of blade – a sword?  An axe?  Ivan couldn’t make it out, because the man’s shape kept changing.

“Better to be honest, Vanya,” said Harrieta, who’d come up behind him somehow.  She grinned over her shoulder as she walked away into the woods.  Ivan started to follow, but then the man in the meadow called out, “What do you want?” and he was Misha and the blade was a scythe.  Ivan remembered that he was supposed to be bundling the rye and went over to help, but Misha was always farther away.  Then he vanished altogether and the edge of the meadow was on fire, a ring of fire with Ivan in the middle, the flames leaping and dancing ever closer.

Ivan called out for help, to Misha, to Harrieta, to his horse, but the only answer came from the flames themselves.  He could almost but never quite make out words in their crackling and hissing.  He took a step closer, trying to catch what they were saying, then realized what he was doing and stepped back.  But when he stepped back the fire followed.  It came up behind him, as unexpectedly as Harrieta, and then he was surrounded, the flames licking at his bare feet.

Ivan shut his eyes, prepared to die.  But there was no pain.  Heat, certainly, and a sensation of being... stroked?  Ivan opened his eyes again and looked down at the flames twining around his bare ankles and calves, rising steadily.  Even as he watched a tendril of flame rose up to stroke the tender hollow behind one of his knees.  It was oddly pleasant.  And then something more than pleasant as the flames rose higher, licking and stroking the insides of his thighs, so that an answering heat began growing in his belly.

He felt no pain and no fear as the flames encircled his hips and groin, stroking, grasping, licking, rubbing, heat without and heat within, ever rising, ever building until he was shaking with it, the heat and the pleasure.  He knew what the flames said now, they said vanyavanyavanyushhhhhhka and Ivan threw back his head, his body clenching all over...

...As he woke up, lying in his bedroll, panting, still fully dressed and now rather sticky at the groin.  When his breathing had slowed, he stripped off his trousers, wiped himself with them, and then tossed them out of his bedroll.  Then he went back to sleep.  He’d figure it out in the morning.

***

In the morning, his soiled trousers were still there, his sword was still there, his horse and the remains of last night’s campfire were still there.  So was the meadow, green and untouched except where Bezimyan had grazed.  Ivan washed himself and his trousers in the stream, waited until the cloth had more or less dried in the sun, then mounted up and went on his way, east and a bit north along the road.

At about midday, he came to a small village.  In the centre of the village was a well, and at the well stood a slight young woman with mousy brown hair, drawing water.  Seeing Ivan approach, she poured a bucket of water into the horse trough next to the well so that Bezimyan could drink.

“Thank you, gospozha,” said Ivan as he dismounted and then bowed slightly.

This seemed to fluster the young woman, who turned quite pink.  “Oh!  It was no trouble!  And no one calls me gospozha, everyone just calls me Manya.”

“Then we rhyme, for I am Vanya – Ivan Watovich Stolitsky.  Mikhail Mikhailovich Kamen’brodsky directed me to the village of Svyatoy Varfolomeyevsk and told me to ask for Mariya Tobyevna Bocharova.”

“Oh!” said Manya again, and turned even pinker.  “That’s me.  Misha, did he, uh...”

She was certainly pretty enough, but what had Misha been on about, warning Ivan about her sharp tongue?  On the contrary, she seemed a timid sort.  Still, Misha claimed to have a reputation as matchmaker, and this was the woman he had directed Ivan to address.  Ivan gave her his best smile.

“Misha gave me a sack of unground rye for you, and then said I should listen to what you say.”

“Oh!” said Manya a third time.  She bit her lip and looked grave.  Really, she was rather charming.  “Well, I, ah, I – I’ve got all this washing to do!  I can talk to you after that, but I’ve got to get the washing done first.  And it would go faster if you, ah – would you mind carrying water for me?  Because I’m going to need lots, and if I could just focus on the washing bit and you were doing the carrying bit, it would all go, ah...”

“Faster,” agreed Ivan.  “To be honest, I’m not sure how _much_ faster, but I’ll do the best I can.”

Manya smiled in relief.  “Well, really, no one can do more than that!”

Leaving her buckets behind, she showed Ivan to her house, small but neatly kept.  In the yard behind, a large pot of water bubbled over a fire and piles of clothes lay about, apparently waiting to be washed.  A shed to one side, and it was here that Ivan tied Bezimyan.  He unsaddled the horse and, taking up his walking stick, returned to the well.

Carrying a full bucket of water in one hand while leaning on the stick with the other was no easy task.  The village streets were full of children, running this way and that.  Ivan remembered the jewels hidden in his saddlebags and thought briefly of hiring one of the older children to carry the water.  But Misha had asked him to thresh grain before he would give Ivan any advice, and now Manya had asked him to carry water before she would talk to him.  He was seeing a pattern here, so he made trip after trip to the well, even though his leg ached and his shoulder burned.

The sun was low in the sky before Manya Bocharova pronounced herself done with the washing.  She helped Ivan get Bezimyan settled for the night with water and grain and then showed Ivan where he might wash up a bit before eating.  Inside the house was only one room, with a bed closet at one side and a stove at the other.  In the middle of the room was a table, with two places laid.  Supper turned out to be fresh rye bread and borscht with sour cream, and nothing the imperial kitchens produced could have tasted finer to Ivan.   

After they had eaten, Manya sat for awhile, studying Ivan but not speaking.  When she finally spoke, he did not expect the question she asked.

“Are you happy, Vanya Stolitsky?”

Ivan started to say yes, of course, but something made him stop and think.  He had been happy as a child, playing with Harrieta under their nursemaids’ watchful eyes.  He had been happy as a youth – he’d enjoyed his studies and done well at them.  He had been happy to dance at his sister’s wedding, even happier to leave court for the army.  He’d been happy with his men amidst the southern mountains.

Where was his happiness now?

“I’d like to be,” he answered finally.  “But first I am my father’s son.”

Manya nodded.  “That’s not an easy choice.”

“Does it have to be a choice, one or the other, not both?”

“For some people, yes.  For you?  Time will tell.  Speaking of time, it’s late, so you should stay the night.  But, ah, I’m a woman alone, and the neighbours gossip, so, ah, if you wouldn’t mind...”

“The shed will be fine,” said Ivan with a smile.

“Thank you.  In the morning, I’ll give you a sack of rye flour to take to a friend of mine, Marfa Hudovna Pekarnskaya, and directions on how to find her.  You should listen to what she tells you.  Now, good night, Vanya Stolitsky.”

***

His shoulder ached like fire as he limped down the dusty street with the heavy bucket of water.  Surely Manya Bocharova’s house had not been so far away from the well before?

Harrieta darted out of an alley, almost directly in front of him.  “Are you happy, Vanya?  Be honest!”  She dashed across the street and vanished down another alley, the nursemaids close on her heels.

The street was hardly more than an alley itself.  Had it always been this narrow?  And amazingly dark, considering the heat from the sun blazing down.  Ivan looked up to check the position of the sun and found that instead he was looking at a roof of old, moss-grown rock.  The houses were gone too – rock walls closed in on either side of him, and why had he thought it was hot?  The cold, damp air of the tunnel chilled him to the bone.  His bare feet splashed in the puddles on the muddy floor. 

He turned to go back, but the way behind him was closed off by a wall of rock.  He turned again to go forward, but there was no way forward.  He was surrounded by rock.  But no, that wasn’t so.  He could see the moon shining overhead, framed in a circle of stone.  He was at the bottom of a well, and the water was rising, up to his ankles, then his calves, then his knees.  If he’d been wearing trousers, they would have been soaked.

He tried calling for help.  Manya Bocharova’s head appeared at the top of the well.  “What do you want?” she asked.  Considering that the water was now up to his waist, he would have thought that was obvious.  But before he could explain, she shook her head.  “You’re not wearing any clothes.  People will talk,” she said apologetically.  Then she vanished.

He called for help again.  Misha Kamen’brodsky showed up, but he just shook his head.  “I told you to listen to her, Vanya Stolitsky.”  He too vanished.

The water was up to Ivan’s chest when he called for help a third time.  A torch appeared at the top of the well.  He couldn’t see who was holding it.  No, wait, not a torch – a ball of fire, hanging in the air.  A thick tendril of fire, like a rope, began to feed out from the ball, the end getting ever closer to Ivan.  Would it burn his hands if he grasped it to climb?  He had to try.

Bracing himself for the pain, Ivan reached for the fiery rope – only to have it dance out of his way.  Instead, it wrapped itself around his body just below his arms and then began to pull him upwards.  There was no pain at all, not from the fire nor even from his shoulder or leg.  He grasped the rope in both hands to take some of the strain off his armpits and tried to help by bracing his legs against the side of the well.

When he reached the top of the well, the rope stiffened and held him steady as he climbed out, shivering as the cold night air raised goose bumps on his wet skin.  But the fire wrapped around him, warm and caressing, stroking and soothing and then not soothing at all as it wrapped around his hips, close and hot and intimate.  He thrust forward into it, unable to help himself, and the flames chuckled and whispered his name, vanyavanyavanyushhhhhhka, and he thrust again...

...And woke in the dark shed, very happy _not_ to be sleeping in the same room as Manya Bocharova.  He’d placed a pair of heavy buckets against the shed door on the off chance that she might come out to check on him and risked leaving his trousers outside of his bedroll along with his sword.  Now he was glad of his foresight.  When his heart slowed, he wiped himself off with a rag, lay back down and willed himself to sleep.  He had no idea what the morning might bring, but a soldier learns to sleep when he can.

*** 

Morning brought heavy fog, a sack of rye flour, a second sack of food for the journey and directions.

“Ride always to the east and the north, but do not cross the mountains that will rise on your left.  You’ll come to an ancient bridge that crosses a river running down from the mountains, at the western border of a great forest.  Once you cross the bridge, do not stop for any reason until you’ve come to Marfa Hudovna’s house.”

“East, north, bridge, don’t stop.  Got it.”

Manya didn’t seem to think he was taking this seriously enough.  “I warn you, Vanya Stolitsky, not for injury or nightfall, no matter what you may see or hear, do not stop.”

“I do hear you and thank you for your counsel... gospozha,” replied Ivan, and was pleased to see her blush and smile slightly.  Perhaps if things didn’t work out with her friend Marfa, he could come back and court Manya herself.  It wouldn’t be the worst idea.

Bezimyan returned to the road willingly enough.  They rode all day past meadows and through woods, with a line of distant hills appearing gradually to their left.  Ivan made camp a short way from the road that night and slept well.  He did not dream.

The second day passed much like the first, except that the hills rose and became true mountains.  The wind that blew down from them carried a scent of ice and pine.  Again, Ivan made camp for the night.  Again, he did not dream.

Shortly past noon on the third day, Ivan came to a river, not too wide but deep, fast and cold, running southwards.  The road crossed it on a bridge made of stone, beautifully engineered and adorned with carved sculptures and inscriptions.  Time, however, had blurred the carvings, rendering them unrecognizable.  The few that Ivan could make out looked strange and foreign to him.  It was not his own people who had built this bridge.

The forest that rose on the other side was bridge was dark and deep, the road a mere track that ran between the trees.  No wind blew there, no birds sang, no small animals scampered among the fallen leaves and branches.  It was so silent that Ivan found himself straining to hear _anything_ , just to break the silence.

And then he did hear something.  A man’s voice.  His father’s... no, wait, Misha Kamen’brodsky?  Ivan could almost make out the words, not quite, but it was definitely Misha – and then it was Uilleam an t-Moireach, speaking in his own tongue, which was why Ivan could not understand, that made sense, right?

A branch hit Ivan in the face and he realized that he’d started to turn Bezimyan off the road, towards the voice.  Shaking his head, he corrected his course.  A woman laughed somewhere in the woods slightly ahead of him.  His mother laughed, but his mother was dead.  It must be Harrieta – or perhaps Manya?  But he’d never heard Manya laugh, so how would he know what her laughter sounded like?

Then the woman screamed, and Ivan had drawn his sword and spurred Bezimyan forward before he even thought was he was doing.  He would have ridden to her assistance except that Bezimyan stumbled over a root.  Ivan spared a moment’s attention to catch his balance – and realized that once again he was about to ride off the road.

After that he was more cautious, ignoring the voices that rose and fell around him, the flickers of motion he saw in the trees.  His leg and shoulder began to pain him, the pain growing the farther he rode, but he did not stop, not even to take a moment to stretch them.

He couldn’t make out the sun’s position through the thick branches, but eventually the pale sunlight that managed to filter through began to fail.  Ivan had no desire to be caught outdoors in this uncanny forest at night, but there was nothing for it but to ride on.

The last of the light had just vanished when he came to a clearing where the road apparently ended in front of a good-sized house.  As Ivan dismounted, the front door opened.  Someone stood in the doorway holding a torch.  An older woman’s voice called out, “Hello?  Who’s there?”

“Gospozha Pekarnskaya?”  Ivan stepped forward into the circle of light, that she might see him.  “My name is Ivan Watovich Stolitsky.  Manya Bocharova sent me.  I have a sack of rye flour for you, and would ask your advice.”

In the torch’s light, the woman was indeed white-haired and elderly.  But she smiled warmly in welcome.  “Then you’d best come in, dear.  Let me show you where you can stable your horse first.”


	3. Chapter 3

Behind the house stood a small barn.  Once Ivan had got Bezimyan settled down with hay and grain, he entered the house itself.  It was well-furnished but everything was in an older style and somewhat worn, so that the overall effect was comfortable rather than grand.

Marfa Hudovna brought Ivan a glass of hot tea and then a plate of freshly baked pirozhki filled with beef and onions.  She kept him company as he ate, asking many questions about his life as a soldier and his journey to find a spouse and somewhere to settle down.  She sounded so genuinely kind and interested that Ivan felt vaguely guilty.  Nothing he told her was a lie, but he was certainly leaving out some important pieces of the truth. 

Soon after he finished eating, the long day’s ride began to catch up with him.  Marfa Hudovna smiled at his yawns and showed him to a spare bedroom, where a fine featherbed waited for his weary body.

If Ivan had any dreams at all, he did not remember them.  But he woke suddenly in the dark room.  It took him a moment to realize that what had awakened him was the sound of a door opening and closing.  He got out of bed and went to the window, discovering that it faced east and looked out upon the yard behind the house.  The eastern sky was beginning to turn from black to purple.  The first hesitant strains of birdsong were rising from the dark forest beyond the yard.  And Ivan could just barely make out the shape of Marfa Hudovna, carrying what appeared to be a small jug and a cloth bundle, making her way across the yard.  She vanished into the trees.

Ivan cursed and began pulling his clothes on.  The forest was no place for an elderly woman alone.  As he was just reaching for his sword and walking stick, he glanced out the window again – to see Marfa Hudovna coming back, this time with a jug and a piece of cloth.  Ivan heard the kitchen door open and close again.

He sat for a while, thinking on what he’d seen.  Finally he rose and went down to the kitchen, where he found Marfa Hudovna bustling about.  As she served him kasha and tea for breakfast, Ivan made a point of wondering out loud how she managed on her own in the middle of forest.  But she only laughed. 

“I do well enough, dear.  Friends like Mariya Tobyevna send me gifts.”  Then she looked thoughtful.  “But some things _are_ hard, what with my hip and all.  While you’re here, do you think you might do something about the firewood?”

After he’d seen to Bezimyan, Ivan studied the pile of logs sitting at one side of the yard.  It was a good-size pile, but the logs were too large for Marfa Hudovna’s woodstove.  He found an axe in the barn, already sharpened, and set to work trimming and splitting the logs into manageable pieces.  Between his leg and his shoulder, it was awkward, difficult work, but he kept at it doggedly, taking breaks to pile the wood against the house so that it would be convenient for Marfa Hudovna.

As the sun rose in the sky, so did the wood piled against the house.  It was past noon when Ivan finished, and his leg and shoulder were throbbing.  Still, he felt pleased with himself as he had washed up at the well.  Marfa Hudovna brought him tea and a plate of left-over pirozhki, and he sat on the house’s shady porch to eat, listening to the murmur of the breeze in the forest trees.

When Marfa Hudovna woke him, Ivan was somewhat embarrassed to find that he’d dozed off.  What was left of the afternoon went by quickly and peacefully.  He spent some time with Bezimyan and then helped Marfa Hudovna weed her vegetable garden.

For supper that evening there was shchi and fresh rye bread.  Afterwards, they sat together, Ivan polishing his sword and Marfa Hudovna knitting.  The silence lengthened between them, but Ivan sensed that it was not his place to break it.  Finally, Marfa Hudovna sighed.

“You say you want to marry and to settle down.  If you had to choose only one of those things, which would it be?”

To be honest, what Ivan himself wanted was neither.  He’d been happy as a soldier and had never sought the throne.  Court life suffocated him.  But he would do what his family and his country needed of him, which was to marry so that he could ascend the throne.  He thought he would not mind being married so much, except that settling down to rule afterwards was the implicit and an inescapable goal of marriage.  He couldn’t tell Marfa Hudovna any of this, of course.

“I would choose marriage,” he replied instead.

Marfa Hudovna beamed.  “In that case, dear, I think I may be able to help you.  But you should get some sleep now, because you’ll need to be up tomorrow before dawn and I don’t know when you’ll next get a chance to rest after that.”      

***

He was sleeping on the porch and the wind in the trees whispered, “Vanyavanyavanyushhhhhhka,” but he wasn’t sleeping after all – he was flying.  Flying high over the forest, very fast, so that the wind brought tears to his eyes but he wasn’t afraid because the flames wrapped around him held him safe, would never let him fall.  They flew on and on, towards the light of the sun, but the sun suddenly turned dark and they flew into the centre of the darkness.

He was swinging an axe at the trees that blocked his way, fighting to climb the narrow path up the hill, to get to the top of the hill where the flames danced but these were not _his_ flames.  This fire would hurt him, burn him.  It _willed_ him to burn, it licked at his legs, at his hands and the flesh blackened and split but he would not let go of... what was it he was holding?  He knew only that it was precious and that he would never, _could_ never let go of it.

He heard his own voice crying out, a single word – a name? – but couldn’t make out what it was.  And then a different voice called...

“Ivan Watovich?  Time to wake up, dear.  Ivan Watovich?” 

Ivan blinked awake to see Marfa Hudovna standing above him, holding a candle.  “I’m sorry, dear, I know it’s early, but you have to get up now if you’re going to be in time.  I’ll go back to the kitchen and finish getting things ready while you dress.  Wear something warm, and bring your sword.”

Ivan dressed carefully.  He poured Harrieta’s jewels out of their case onto a piece of cloth, wrapped them up and tucked this smaller bundle inside his shirt.  Then he pulled on his leather surcoat, belted his sword on over it and picked up his walking stick.

When he arrived in the kitchen, Marfa Hudovna looked him over and nodded.  Then she reached around her neck and pulled something over her head – a cord from which was strung a wooden frame with a handle, holding a round piece of clear glass.  She handed this to Ivan, indicating that he should put it around his own neck.

“It will help you see through illusions, dear.”

Ivan nodded and tucked it beneath his shirt, next to his father’s signet ring.

Next Marfa Hudovna gave him what appeared to be an empty sack.  “Keep that with you, dear, to hold food for your journey.”

Ivan tucked the sack in his sword belt, thinking he could use it to store whatever food he found or was given.

Finally she handed him an earthenware jug and a cloth bundle.  If he tucked the bundle into the crook of his elbow, he could hold the jug in one hand and use the other for his walking stick.

“Across the yard, you’ll find a path into the forest.  It will lead you to a grove of birch trees.  That’s where you wait, dear.  I’ve made extra, so there should be plenty.”

“Sorry?” asked Ivan, confused.

“Breakfast, dear,” replied Marfa Hudovna, and she opened the kitchen door and looked at him expectantly.

***

The black-purple colour of the eastern sky, the strains of rising birdsong were all as they had been the day before.  Despite the half-light, Ivan had no trouble making out the path, as it was lined with white stones.  As promised, it led to a grove of tall, white birch trees.  No one else appeared to be there, so Ivan settled down against a tree to wait.  He’d already scanned the trees around him several times for signs that someone was approaching when he happened to glance upwards – and froze.  A huge, dark shape perched high in a tree only yards from where Ivan sat.  It looked like nothing so much as a gigantic bird, a bird the size of a man.

Moving cautiously, Ivan used his walking stick to lever himself to his feet and drew his sword, only to see the bird-creature leave its perch and swoop down to the ground.  Once there, it began a strange dance, alternately pirouetting and spreading, then folding its vast wings.  Ivan stood his ground, and the bird-creature – half a head taller than Ivan himself – came to a halt only a sword’s length away.  Then, just as the first rays of the sun came over the horizon, it spoke.

“At least you haven’t run away screaming yet.”

And its feathers turned to flame.

Or, no, not flame, Ivan realized when he started breathing again.  But the growing sunlight displayed all the colours of flame – crimson and scarlet, gold and citrine, even the pale purplish-blue of the hottest flames – on its wings and tail.  The feathers shaded to a rich purple on its upper body, which had two very human arms, and then to black on its head and lower body.  A crest of black feathers grew from its head.  Its black-feathered legs looked almost human, except that they ended in the clawed feet of a bird.

Strangest of all, though, were the places not covered by feathers.  At the end of each arm, the creature had a pale, slender, long-fingered human hand.  And amidst the black feathers of its head, its face was perfectly human, although pale and somewhat exotic in appearance, with high cheekbones and silver-grey eyes.

It glanced at Ivan’s sword and spoke again.  “Living or dead?”

Right, thought Ivan, and got ready to die fighting, however awkwardly.

“Not you, idiot.  The man you stole the sword from.  Don’t look so offended, it’s obvious.  The hilt is plain but the blade is Damascene steel.  Judging by your clothes, your family’s not wealthy enough for you to have inherited _or_ bought such a blade.  You either picked it up on a battlefield after its owner was killed or you stole it while the man was still alive.”

“Actually,” said Ivan, regaining his composure, “I won it at dice.”  He didn’t bother to mention that he’d won it _back_ after losing it that way in the first place. 

“Unlikely.  The hilt’s too plain to suit the taste of the sort of rich dandy who’d be fool enough to wager a sword like that...”

“Hey!” Ivan cried out, stung.

“Oh!  I see.”  The creature regarded Ivan thoughtfully.  “I may have misjudged.  The sword _is_ yours, but the clothes are not.  You haven’t lied to Marfa Hudovna – your grip on the hilt is indeed that of a soldier – but you haven’t told her the entire truth, either.  I know who you are, Ivan Watovich.”

Shit.  This was it, then.  It was time to come clean.  “My father...” Ivan began.

“Is a rich and powerful man, possibly with close ties to the imperial family.  You wear his token on a cord around your neck.  Probably a signet ring.  You’re not his heir, or at least you don’t want to be, therefore you’ve got at least one sibling, gender indeterminate.”

Ivan blinked.  How could the creature know so much and yet apparently fail to recognize the tsarevich’s name?  It appeared to be waiting expectantly.  “Well,” said Ivan, “I can see there’s no fooling you!”  The creature preened.  “Uh, care for some breakfast?”

Breakfast turned out to be cold spiced tea and jam-filled pastries.  The creature had a sip of one and a nibble of the other, but seemed more interested in Ivan’s walking stick and examined it closely.

“Do you know what the characters mean?” asked Ivan, watching the black-feathered head bent over the stick.

The creature looked back at him, its silver gaze direct and disconcerting.  “You don’t know the stick’s proper use and you don’t need it for the purpose which you _are_ using it.”

Ivan got a firm grip on his temper.  “I need it because I’m lame.  Battle injury.”

“No.”

“Look, I don’t recall you being present when...”

“You suffered a mace blow to your left shoulder, after which your horse fell on you.”

“All right,” said Ivan slowly, remembering the crow in his tent.  “You _were_ present when...”

“No, I was not, and no, you’re not lame.  You just think you are.”

“I _think_ I am?  Look, you, I’ve been seen by the finest doctors in...” – the imperial court – “uh, that my father could hire...”

“And they are idiots.  The doctors may have _seen_ you, Ivan Watovich, but I _observe_ you.”

Ivan shivered, knowing those silver eyes caught the motion.  It wasn’t unpleasant, being observed by this uncanny creature, but it was... intense.

“Why did Marfa Hudovna send you to me?”

Sticking with his cover story seemed rather hopeless by this point, but Ivan decided to give it a go anyway.  “I’m looking to marry and settle down.”

“Dull,” sniffed the creature.

“Fine then, try this.  I’m looking for someone of royal or at least noble blood to marry.  I suspect my father would prefer a princess but really, a prince would do just as...”

“Boring,” said the creature with a shrug.  It put the walking stick down and ruffled its wings as if in preparation for flight.

“I think my family may be under a curse!” blurted Ivan desperately.

The creature paused.  “Details,” it demanded.  “Don’t omit anything.”

So Ivan started with the crow and went on from there, describing the battle, what he remembered of the aftermath, what he’d been told by others who’d cared for him in his feverish state.  He described his mother’s unexpected death and his sister-in-law’s departure.  He did, however, omit their names and titles. 

Finally, Ivan described his father’s desperation that one of his children should marry and carry on the family name.  It was quite the moving account, if he said so himself.

But the creature stared at Ivan with narrowed eyes, its human hands pressed together with the fingertips held to its human, lushly curved lips.  It knows I’m leaving something out, thought Ivan, and it probably knows what as well.

When the creature spoke, however, it was to say, “And what is it you expect me to do about this curse?  I am no sorcerer, to lift it for you by magic alone.  There will be risk and danger involved.”

Ivan stared back, feeling as if he stood at the brink of a precipice.  The false tsarevich had ridden from the capital on a false quest to discover and defeat the sorcerer who had cast the curse, but what had been meant as a cover story had suddenly become real.  It was Ivan who stood here now, faced with a potential ally stranger than anything he could have imagined.

“As you are no sorcerer, I am no coward to sit idly by while another faces danger for my family’s sake.  If this curse can be lifted, we will do it together.”

The creature grinned and held out a hand as if to help Ivan up.  “Come then, Ivan Watovich!  The game’s afoot - or rather, a-wing!”

“What, right now?” yelped Ivan, thinking that he at least ought to go get Bezimyan.

“Problem?”

“I don’t even know your name!”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes, and your horse will be useless to us.”  With that the creature – Sherlock – grabbed Ivan’s arm, pulled him up and against Sherlock’s body and then spread its wings and leapt into the sky, leaving behind the jug, the remaining pastries and Ivan’s walking stick.


	4. Chapter 4

Any protestations Ivan might have made were swept away by the wind.  As the tsarevich, he had had the opportunity to ride the finest, fastest horses, but Sherlock’s powerful wings carried them high above the forest at a speed far greater than any horse could have managed.  They flew so fast that the sun rose in the sky twice as rapidly as usual, for they were flying to meet it.

The forest stretched beneath them like vast green sea whose waves were the tossing of branches in the wind.  At the height at which they flew, the wind was cold and cutting, but Ivan felt warm enough in his surcoat and safe with Sherlock’s arms wrapped around him.  Indeed, there was something familiar about the strange situation, although he could not quite place it.  It was difficult to think, between the excitement of the flight itself and the sensation of being held close and tight against Sherlock’s body, feeling the taut muscles move beneath the feathers.

They flew on and on. The green sea gave way to blue, and Ivan caught the faint scent of salt.  Then they were flying over another forest again.  A dark bulk appeared on the horizon.  As they grew closer, Ivan could make out the towers and turrets of a huge castle.  Within the hour they had arrived.  Sherlock landed just far enough away to be out of sight from the castle walls.

Breathless and grinning, Ivan stumbled a bit as Sherlock set him back down on solid ground, and Sherlock caught his shoulder to steady him and help him sit down.  “Spasibo, Sherlock.  That was amazing!”

“Really.  That’s not the usual reaction.”

“Oh?  What is?”

“One fellow pissed himself.”

At which point Ivan finally lost control of the laughter bubbling up within him.  When he caught Sherlock staring at him, he laughed all the harder, until finally Sherlock started to laugh as well.

It took them some time to regain any degree of sobriety, as they kept setting each other off, but eventually Ivan wiped his eyes.  “What’s next?”

“You’re a soldier, you tell me.”

“A bit of reconnaissance, then.”

“Precisely.  The walls are bespelled to sound an alert if I fly directly overhead and we’re likely to be spotted if I keep circling around the outside, but we should be able to find a good vantage point among the trees.”  Sherlock held out its, no, _his_ hand and Ivan took it, letting himself be pulled to his feet.

A short flight to the top of a tall oak gained them perches among the swaying branches.  It was not, Ivan told himself, not _that_ much different from riding a horse.  A very skinny horse with very long legs.

“If you fall I’ll probably be able to catch you before you hit the ground,” Sherlock promised in an off-handed tone.  “Look at the castle.  What do you see?”

“Walls, gate, courtyard inside.  Only a handful of guards.  Wearing chainmail, I think?”

“Very good.”

“It’s the way it reflects the sunlight.  Not many other people about, only the guards and seven people moving in a circle.  Dancing, maybe?”

“Muircheartaigh’s slaves.”

“Whose?”  The odd name sounded almost like something from Uilleam an t-Moireach’s language.

“The sorcerer.  He captures them and bespells them to dance until they die.  Look at the castle itself.”

“No guards at the door of the main keep.  He’s depending on the guards at the outer gate.  Bit sloppy, that.”

“He’s also depending on his own magic.”

“True.”

“Also sloppy.  The keep itself?”

“Well, it’s your basic keep.  Tall stone walls, narrow windows.  Two towers, one to the north, one to the south, each with battlements on top.”

“Muircheartaigh’s workshop is at the top of the northern tower.”

Ivan looked at Sherlock, curious.

“It’s the only room where the windows are lit long after dark.”

“Don’t sorcerers sleep?”

“Not often.”

Ivan hesitated, then said, “I don’t mean to pry, but if we’re to infiltrate the keep together, I need to know what you know.  You wouldn’t know about the windows unless you’d been here before.”

Sherlock, still staring at the tower, shrugged.  “A few times.  And we’re not infiltrating the keep together.  I told you, I can’t fly over the walls.  To breach the protective spells, visitors need to be invited to enter through the gates.  That’s why I need you.”

“To get us invited in.”

“And then it would be good if you could distract the guards while I let myself into the keep,” said Sherlock seriously.

“Oh, right, no problem then!  Sherlock, I’m one man...”

“With a very good sword...”

“And no armour!  You expect me to take on a contingent of armoured guards by myself.”

“I’ll be busy with Muircheartaigh.  If you can’t fight them, do something else.  Talk to them – you people do that.  You spend absurd amounts of time talking about all sorts of useless things.”

“’You people’?  D’you mean soldiers?”

“Humans,” sneered Sherlock, his gaze icy beneath his crest of black feathers.  Ivan was startled to realize how quickly he’d grown used to Sherlock’s strangeness – until Sherlock himself reminded him.

“All right.  I’ll need time to think of something.  And the sun’s sinking and _I’m_ not a sorcerer to go without sleep.  When are we doing this?”

“Tomorrow morning would be best,” Sherlock allowed.  “We’ll make camp in the forest for tonight.”

***

Sherlock’s idea of “making camp” appeared to consist of depositing Ivan at the bottom of a tree before flying up to perch on one of the lower branches.  When no further action appeared to be forthcoming, Ivan asked, “Is it safe to make a small fire?”

“Why?”

“For comfort.  To feel less lonely.  We should set watches and take turns sleeping, so that one of us is always on guard.”

“Sleep as much as you like.  I won’t.”

“We’re invading...”

“Infiltrating.”

“Breaking into a sorcerer’s castle tomorrow.  Get some sleep.  But first, fire or no fire?  I’m counting to ten and I don’t have an answer by then, I’m building one.”  Odin, dva, tri...  When he reached desyat’ without further comment from Sherlock, Ivan levered himself to his feet and staggered around until he found a stout fallen branch.  With apologies to the blade, he used his sword to hack off a length suitable for a walking stick.  Then he set out to gather more fallen wood.

There must have been rain here recently, because the underbrush was all still quite wet.  Ivan was able to collect of large pile of tinder and kindling, but when he tried to light it with flint and steel, he couldn’t get the sparks to catch.  He swore and was about to give up when a large shape landed beside him in the growing darkness.  Sherlock reached forward to touch one brilliantly-coloured wingtip to a bit of tinder – and the tinder immediately burst into flames.

“Spasibo,” muttered Ivan as he knelt to nurse the fledgling fire into full growth.  When he looked up again, Sherlock was still there, crouching awkwardly with his clawed feet splayed on the ground and the tips of his wings and tail dragging in the dirt.  Ivan studied his profile in the firelight.  Sherlock had said he’d been to the castle before.  Why?  What had drawn him here?  Ivan suspected that a direct attack would get him nowhere.

“Why does, ah, Mur-kheyar-tikh?” – Sherlock winced – “the sorcerer keep slaves to dance for him?”

“Why do sorcerers do anything?” Sherlock replied with a shrug.

“Not very informative, that.”  No answer.  “All right, then, you said they dance until they die.  Where does he get new ones?  Does he buy them?”

“He sets spells to draw them to him.  Some think they’re running to escape a curse.  Others” – Sherlock raised an eyebrow in Ivan’s direction – “think they’re seeking to destroy the sorcerer who cursed them.  But in the end, they’re all drawn into his net.” 

A chill ran down Ivan’s spine.  “You think he’s bespelled me to come to him.”  He remembered the morning he left the capital and his decision to ride east simply because east felt like the best way to go.  The north wind was cold, there was war in the south.  Why not go east?

“I don’t ‘think’ – I know.”

“But you’re the one who carried me here.”

“You would have arrived here eventually, with me or without me.  What would your chances be, standing alone against a sorcerer?”

“Much better than they are at this moment,” Ivan said slowly, “If you’re working for him.”

With a sweep of wings and tail, Sherlock stood and spun to face him.  Ivan saw real anger in the silver eyes before Sherlock spat, “Fine.  I’ll bring you back to Marfa Hudovna’s tomorrow.  I’m sure she’ll give you a nice meal before she sends you on your way.  But remember, Ivan Watovich, all your roads will always lead you back to Muircheartaigh.”  Then Sherlock leapt upwards and regained his high perch.

Left alone beside the fire, Ivan stared into the flames, trying to balance trust and risk.  He was almost glad of the distraction when his belly growled, although they had no food and it would be useless to try hunting for small game in the dark.  He remembered Marfa Hudovna’s cooking a bit wistfully – and then thought of the sack she had given him.  It still hung from his belt, apparently empty.

Feeling a bit foolish, Ivan pulled the sack out and reached into it.  Just in case it might help, he closed his eyes and wished for hot pirozhki, but his eyes flew open again when his fingers touched smooth ceramic and – a bundle wrapped in cloth?  He laughed softly to himself as he drew out a familiar earthenware jug and bundle.    

“Sherlock,” he called, “Do you want some leftover breakfast?  There’s a wedge of cheese as well.”

No answer, although a quick glance upwards showed him that Sherlock was still there.

As Ivan ate, he mulled over the question of Sherlock’s loyalties.  It would be a great deal easier to trust the creature if Ivan knew what reason he might have for going against Muircheartaigh.

“Sherlock,” he called again, after a while, “The sorcerer’s slaves, ah, is anyone you know...”

“Knew.  Was and knew,” came the deep voice out of the dark.

“Someone who’s now dead, then.  I’m sorry for that.”

A pause.  Then: “You didn’t kill him.”

“No, but I’ve killed many men whose deaths I’m _not_ sorry for.  I can be sorry for a death I didn’t cause.”

Another pause, which lengthened.  Finally, Sherlock said quietly, “His name was Victor Trevor.  He was... a friend.  Well, I say a friend...”

Ivan waited, but nothing more was forthcoming.  “Did he come from the same land as you?  I’ve heard the name Viktor before but Trevor is as foreign as Holmes and Sherlock.”

“Trevor would be something like Gorodsky in your tongue and Holmes, Ostrovsky.  Sherlock... Svetlovolos, I think?  Or perhaps Yarkovolos.”

Svetlovolosiy, fair-haired, Sherlock was certainly _not_ , but yarkovolosiy?  “Yarkovolos suits you,” Ivan said with a grin.

Having eaten, Ivan now found himself growing sleepy.  Part of him argued that he should try to stay awake, that Sherlock was not to be trusted, at least not completely.  But if Sherlock was working for Muircheartaigh, why had he not been able to land within the walls of the castle?  Why take the trouble to wait until Ivan was sleeping before – what, signalling to Muircheartaigh’s guards to come and capture him?  And Ivan’s options were limited.  Tomorrow he would have to either trust Sherlock while they infiltrated the castle together, trust Sherlock to carry him back – or set off alone and on foot across unknown lands and seas in an attempt to reach his distant home.

“Sherlock, I’m leaving half the food in case you want it later.  You should eat something.  I’m going to sleep now, but wake me in two hours so I can take my turn at watch.  You need sleep, too.”

Wishing for his bedroll, Ivan wrapped his surcoat around himself and curled up on the ground, pillowing his head in his arms.  Yarkovolos, bright-hair, flame-hair – it was almost as strange a name as Sherlock.  Bright and flame-coloured he certainly was, but why hair?  Why not feathers?

Bright hair, flame hair, hair feathers, flame feathers...  The words spun around and around in Ivan’s mind, weaving a circle with him in the middle.  The words were dancers and the dancers circled endlessly around him, but one was missing, the others leaving a space in the pattern where he would have been.  Someone or something shrieked and Ivan heard the sounds of battle nearby, but as long as he stayed within the circle of dancing flames they would protect him.  The flames, flickering as dark wings swept overhead, would dance until death.  He wished he could remember _whose_ death - he knew this was important.  But he needed to focus on his balance, on the golden balance he held in the middle of the circle of flame.  On one side of the balance lay a coal-black feather, on the other side a beating heart.  The balance hung perfectly, absolutely level.  How could he decide?  And whose heart was being weighed?

***

Ivan awoke from blurred dreams of fire and flight to pale and misty morning light that made it all too clear that Sherlock had ignored his instructions about trading watches.  The contents of the sack also suggested that Sherlock had not eaten, although Ivan supposed that the sack could have replenished itself.  When Sherlock deigned to swoop down from his perch and join Ivan on the ground, Ivan thrust a pastry at him.

“Eat this, and have a bit of cheese with it.”

“Eating is boring.”

“Then for entertainment while we’re eating, we can review our plans as to how this is going to work.”

“Our plans depend on your decision,” Sherlock noted.

Ivan took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.  “It seems silly to come all this way and not at least try.  Mind, betray me and I’ll break both your wings.  So how are we getting through this gate?”

“That’s up to you.  The guards will never notice me.”

Ivan couldn’t keep from gaping.  “Sherlock, you’re a six-foot tall bird-man with flame-coloured wings.  How are the guards _not_ going to notice you?”

“I’ll be in disguise.”

“What, you’re going to roll in black mud and try to pass yourself off as a muddy, six-foot tall crow?”

“I assure you,” Sherlock said haughtily, “My disguise will be impenetrable.”  After which he swooped back up to his perch and appeared to sulk.  He at least took the pastry with him, so Ivan didn’t count the conversation as a total loss.

When the last of the food was gone, Ivan tucked the jug back into the sack and the sack back into his belt.  He noticed that the sack with the jug inside felt no heavier or bulkier than when it had been empty.  But then it turned out _not_ to be empty after all, hadn’t it?  Shaking his head, Ivan levered himself to his feet with his improvised walking stick and scuffed out the remains of their fire.  Then he took the small bundle of Harrieta’s jewels out from his shirt and considered the trees around him, finally hiding the bundle in the hollow of an old oak.  With this, his preparations were done. 

“Sherlock,” he called, “Which way to the castle?”

Sherlock led the way by swooping from tree to tree, while Ivan struggled behind on foot, pausing frequently to blaze their trail.

“You do realize that anyone else who happens across your markings will be able to follow them back to your hiding place?” Sherlock commented.

“I haven’t seen that these woods are so populated that’s likely to happen any time soon.  Either I’ll retrieve the bundle before anyone else finds it or I’ll likely be dead, in which case they’re welcome to it,” Ivan replied cheerfully. 

By the time they arrived within sight of the castle, the day was beginning to turn quite warm.  Sweating and huffing a bit, Ivan was startled when Sherlock suddenly landed next to him.

“As you’ve noted yourself, what we are about to attempt is dangerous.  You should take this, but don’t let the guards see it.”  With that he plucked a long, crimson red feather from his wing and handed it to Ivan.  Ivan carefully tucked it inside his shirt, but when he looked up again, Sherlock was gone.    

Typical, thought Ivan, and proceeded in the direction they had already been going.  It wasn’t long before he came upon the clearing in front of the castle gates.  Through the bars of the gates, seven guards could be seen lounging about various stages of boredom.  In the heat of the day, they’d removed their helmets and pushed their cowls back.  If they’d been Ivan’s men, he would have set the lot of them to digging latrines and shovelling manure.

The guards at least sharpened up a bit when they finally noticed Ivan, although he wasn’t sure whether they considered him a potential intruder or a welcome distraction.  There was something odd about the way they moved, as if they all suffered from slightly stiff joints.

“What do you want?” barked one of them, a stout fellow with fierce mustachios.

Here we go, thought Ivan.  “I bring a message for the mighty lord Mur-kheyar-tikh.”

The guards looked uniformly baffled.  “Himself never gets messages,” said another, distinguishable by his carroty hair.

“Ah, but this is an unusual and valuable message.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it is a message from the great and glorious tsar!”

Muttering among the guards.  “Prove it,” sneered a third guard.

“Easily,” said Ivan.  With a flourish, he withdrew his father’s signet ring from underneath his shirt and held it up for the guards to see.  Except that they could _not_ see it, of course, at least not in any detail, because he was still standing some feet in front of the gates.

“Closer!” they all yelled, and Ivan edged a bit closer, but not enough to be of any real use.

At this the guards demanded that Ivan give them the ring that they might examine it more closely, but Ivan refused.  “It’s as much as my life’s worth to surrender this ring to anyone, for the tsar gave it to me himself!”

“Then you’re not getting in!” retorted a squint-eyed guard.  “Tell us what your message is, and we’ll deliver it for you!”

But Ivan shook his head.  “I swore a solemn oath to the tsar that I would deliver it to none but the lord Mur-kheyar-tikh.  If you will not let me pass, I must return to the tsar and report to him that the lord Mur-kheyar-tikh did not receive the message because his servants failed to recognize the tsar’s signet ring.”

At this there was much consternation among the guards.  They seemed to have no captain among them who might make a decision for the group.  There was some discussion of taking the matter directly to Muircheartaigh, but no one was eager to be the man who would “disturb Himself at His work.”

Finally Ivan made a suggestion.  “Look, friends, I’ve had a long journey, and it’s getting hot standing here in the sun.  If you would let me in, you’ll be able to examine the tsar’s ring more closely and to ask me as many questions about the tsar and his court as you need to satisfy yourselves as to my authenticity.  There are seven of you, and I am but one man – and crippled at that.”

“Could the tsar find no better messenger than a lame man?” a blond-bearded guard asked suspiciously.

“The tsar gave me this office as a favour to my father,” explained Ivan, his eyes modestly downcast, “and I am most grateful for it.”    

“Let him in,” said another guard.  “What harm can a cripple do against us?”

The guards unlocked the gates and dragged one open, bowing mockingly to Ivan.  “Welcome, both to you and your little friend!” said Mustachios with a wave at Ivan’s shoulder.

Puzzled, Ivan turned his head slightly to find a rosefinch perched on his shoulder.  “Oh, that one!  He’s been following me ever since I shared my breakfast with him!”

To the laughter of the guards, he limped clumsily through the gates, carrying the rosefinch with him.  Once inside, they all moved into the shade cast by the wall.  Ivan tried to keep himself between the guards and the wall at all times, that their backs might be to the main door of the keep and that they would not see anything that transpired there.  He need not have bothered, however, for the rosefinch flew off across the courtyard and in through one of the keep’s narrow windows.

From where he stood, Ivan had a clearer view of the dancing slaves.  They wore flowing, brightly coloured robes.  Their long hair – and the men’s long beards, for three of them were men – sparkled with jewels in the sunlight.  Yet they moved wearily, gracelessly, often stumbling.

The guards’ sloppy behaviour continued.  Ivan should have been disarmed but instead his sword drew only a couple of glances.  He touched the hilt and explained briefly, “Ceremonial,” then leaned more heavily on his stick.  The guards who’d bothered to look shrugged and joined their fellows in arguing over the signet ring.  Each one had to take Ivan’s hand and examine the ring closely for himself.  It was quite obvious that none of them had the vaguest idea what the tsar’s seal actually looked like, and equally obvious that none of them wanted to admit this.

Finally Ivan reminded them that he was willing to answer questions regarding the tsar and his court.  A short silence followed as the men looked sideways at each other to see who would go first.

“What does the tsar look like, then?” Blond-beard asked.

“The tsar,” replied Ivan solemnly, “is seven feet tall in his stocking feet.”

More silence while Blond-beard tugged thoughtfully on the end of his beard.  “That sounds about right,” he allowed.

After that it was like a dam breaking.  The guards asked question after question, each more irrelevant than the next.  Ivan was in the middle of detailing what the tsar’s favourite horse ate for breakfast when a loud shriek sounded from the palace.  All the guards turned to look.  “The alarm!  Intruders!” one cried out.

Ivan drew his sword with both hands and stabbed viciously upwards into the base of the nearest man’s unarmoured skull.  Then he yanked the blade free, slashed another man across the eyes, kicked out at a third and was almost in time to block a thrust from a fourth.  Almost, but not completely – he deflected the main force of the blow, but the guard’s blade still tore through his surcoat and shirt, into the flesh below.  Ivan felt hot blood began to seep into the shirt.

One guard was dead, another blinded.  The remaining guards were slow and clumsy.  There was no question that Ivan was the better swordsman, and he’d taken up a position with the wall at his back.  But there were still five guards left.  Ivan knew that the only real question was how many he could kill or cripple before he passed out from loss of blood.     

He removed one guard’s sword hand at wrist and sliced the tendons behind another guard’s knees, but his vision was growing dark around the edges.  He made a desperate lunge at a third guard – and stumbled forward and fell to his knees as his target vanished before his eyes.  Immediately he forced himself to his feet and turned to confront his foes, only to discover a pile of clothing, boots, chainmail, swords and branches lying scattered upon the ground.

The guards had been nothing more than animated wood.  The spell which had given them a sort of life had now been broken.  Sherlock’s work, Ivan guessed.  But the alarm meant that Sherlock had also caught Muircheartaigh’s attention and would need help.  Ivan started towards the keep, only to stumble again and almost fall, his vision darkening even further.  He bent forward and braced his hands against his thighs, feeling dizzy and weak.  This might, he realized, be the end.

“I’m a physician.  Let me help.”

The woman’s voice startled Ivan out of the haze which had begun to envelope him.  Her bright-coloured silk robes were finely embroidered, but they were also filthy and worn into tatters where the hem brushed along the ground.  Her silk slippers were in rags, and her track across the courtyard was marked by bloody footprints.  The long brown hair that fell around her gaunt face was dirty, matted and scattered with jewels.

And yet with all of this, her voice was calm and sure.  “My name is Sara Dmitrievna Usacheva.  Please, let me see your wound.”

Ivan was hardly in a position to argue.  He sank down onto the ground and allowed her to push aside his surcoat, lift the hem of his bloody shirt.  His wound was still bleeding, the blood thick and crimson red.  Crimson red...

“I need something to bind this with,” said Sara Dmitrievna, and laid her hands on her own robes as if to rend them apart.

“No, wait.  Under my shirt, there’s a red feather – maybe it’s on the other side.”

Sara frowned, but felt around until she found the feather.

“Lay it against the wound,” Ivan asked.  She frowned even more deeply, but did as he asked.  The crimson feather lay across the crimson blood – but no, the feather seemed to be soaking up the blood, not changing in size or shape as it did so but becoming even more brilliant in colour.  The edges of the wound were now visible, but even as Ivan and Sara watched, the edges shifted, drawing closer together.  The wound was healing, far more rapidly than was natural.

“Well,” said Sara a bit shakily, “What’s a bit more magic in this place?”

They stared at each other until it finally occurred to Ivan to pull his shirt down.  He pulled his surcoat back into place, got to his feet and helped Sara to hers.  Then he paused, torn.  He didn’t like to abandon Sara and the other slaves, but Sherlock...

“My friend’s in there,” he told Sara, indicating the keep.

“Then that’s where you need to go.  I’ll see to my companions.  No, wait!  What’s your name?”

“Ivan Watovich Stolitsky.”

“Then luck be with you, Ivan Watovich.”

“And with you as well, Sara Dmitrievna.  Wait, take this.”  He handed her the crimson feather.  “For your feet.  And the others’.  Grab the guards’ gear and get everyone clear of the castle.”

“I will.  Thank you.”  He turned to go, then heard her say, “By the way, that was a clever trick, pretending to be lame.”

He turned back, puzzled.  “I wasn’t...”

Pretending, he’d meant to add.  But as he spoke he tested his lame leg, putting his weight upon it, and the leg was as sound as if it had never been injured.     

Sara was still watching him, but there was no time to explain even if he’d had an explanation to offer.  He saluted her with his bloody sword, then turned and ran to the keep’s main door.  To his relief, it was unlocked.  Cautiously, he pulled it slightly ajar and slipped inside. 

Inside, the keep was dim, cool and eerily silent.  There was no one in sight – no guards, no servants, no courtiers.  As Ivan hunted for a route that would take him to the north tower, he began to realize that what he’d derided as sloppiness in the security arrangements was rather the supreme confidence of a powerful sorcerer who could rely on his magic alone for protection.  Trying to ignore the chills this thought gave him, he continued to try this corridor and that, eventually discovering a winding staircase that he was fairly sure ascended the north tower.  He was about to start climbing when the ever-so-slight noise of fabric sliding against fabric caught his attention.  He spun about, sword at the ready, but no one was in sight.  However, he noticed that the stairs led down as well as up.

Cautiously, he crept down one flight.  A door on the landing had been left half ajar.  Through the gap, Ivan could see a small chamber, its wall richly hung with tapestries, and a slight, dark-haired man in black robes facing the wall to Ivan’s left.  The man’s hands were held in mid-air, as if he were either raising them or lowering them from being raised.  As Ivan started to back out of sight, the tip of his sword struck the door.  The man turned – and smiled.  Ivan tried to jump back but found his muscles frozen as the man traced a shape in the air.

“Well, well,” said the stranger, “Isn’t this an unexpected pleasure?”  The motion of his hands sketching another shape was the last thing Ivan remembered.


	5. Chapter 5

The first thing Ivan saw when he regained consciousness was darkness.

Then he regained a bit more consciousness and realized that his eyes were closed.  He opened them and for good measure, tried to wipe them with one hand, only to discover that while his eyelids obeyed his will readily enough, his hands did not.  They were not bound.  They simply would not move.  Indeed, he could not voluntarily move anything below his neck.  His heart still beat, his lungs breathed, his legs supported his weight – for indeed, he was standing upon them.

His sword as well as the sack and the looking glass that Marfa Hudovna had given him lay on the stone floor a few feet in front of him.  Beyond these objects, steps led up to a dais where the man he had seen before now sat upon a golden throne.  The stranger wore an ermine stole over his robes and held a bejewelled golden sceptre.  On his head was a gold crown studded with jewels, lined with purple velvet and trimmed with ermine.

“I must say,” declared the stranger in an odd, lilting accent, “that I _am_ disappointed.  After not having visited in so very long, I would have hoped Sherlock would try to make it up to me with a really nice gift, something intriguing and unexpected.  A shopworn princeling armed with nothing more than a sharp sword and a hedge witch’s trinkets hardly qualifies.”

Ivan tried to protest, only to discover that he could not speak.  He settled for glaring.

“Oooh, the puppy’s angry!  I’m so scared!  Did Sherlock tell you that you were worth more than that?  Honesty’s the best policy, _I’ve_ found, but our Sherlock’s not always honest with his pets.  Would you believe, he even convinced some of them that _he_ was helping _them_ by bringing them to me?  Can you imagine?”

Ivan stared as the tendrils of doubt that had taken root in his thoughts the evening before began to grow again.  Sherlock had, in fact, told him very little – and that much only in response to Ivan’s direct questions.  When Ivan had said he was on a quest to find a sorcerer, Sherlock had snatched Ivan into the air and brought him here.  Caught up in the thrill of flight, Ivan had never thought to question how Sherlock knew with such immediate certainty _which_ sorcerer had cursed Ivan’s family.  Until last evening, Ivan had never considered that Sherlock might have an agenda of his own or what that might be.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.  Battles and even wars had been lost on such sloppiness.  Ivan should have known better, but faced with the fantastical, beautiful creature that was Sherlock, he’d apparently stopped thinking at all.  Had Sherlock bespelled him to do so?

“Did he tell you about Victor?” asked Muircheartaigh, for really, this could be no one else.

Ivan took heart, for Sherlock _had_ told him about Victor, had been open on that point at least.

“Did he tell you...,” Muircheartaigh paused, obviously for dramatic effect.  Ivan had seen such tricks before in his father’s councils and among the courtiers.

Muircheartaigh leaned forward on his throne and hissed, “Did he tell you that he left Victor behind?  Brought him here and then ran, well, _flew_ away as fast as he could with Victor’s cries in his ears?”  The sorcerer settled back and stared at Ivan.  Then his tone changed completely, became light and flippant.  “And after all that, Sherlock didn’t even send a card when Victor died!  The man has no heart at all.  Of course, that was _years_ later.  Victor and I had so much _fun_ in the meantime.  Do you want to know what kind of fun we had, Vanechka?”

Abruptly, Ivan could neither draw breath nor expel it.  His lungs, the muscles of his throat and chest had ceased to function.  He could only stand, trying to fight down the rising panic as the edges of his vision darkened.

And then just as abruptly, he _could_ breathe.  He stood drawing great, gasping breaths as Muircheartaigh crooned, “There!  Wasn’t that _fun_?  Wouldn’t you love to do it _again_ , over and over and over?”

“Let him go,” ordered a deep voice from somewhere behind Ivan.

“Oooh, look who finally decided to join the game!”

“This is no game, Muircheartaigh.  Let him go.”

“Let him _go_ , Sherlock?  Just when things are starting to get _interesting_?  I’m not sure that our Vanechka _wants_ to be let go, not just yet.  I think he might have a few _questions_ for you first.”

Ivan felt his feet shuffling beneath him as his body turned around without his volition.  Having Muircheartaigh at his back made his flesh crawl.  Sherlock looked less pristine than he had this morning, his feathers dusted with ashes and in some disarray, but he stood tall, holding his glorious wings slightly outspread.  Between Sherlock and Ivan lay a pool of liquid set into the stone floor.  Water, Ivan thought at first glance, but the liquid had a curious sheen to it and rippled in a way that was oddly disturbing.  Ivan was fairly sure he did not want to go swimming.

He faced Sherlock and felt his jaw flex, the muscles of his throat begin to move.  “Why did you leave Victor behind?” he heard someone ask – and the questioner had his voice.  Muircheartaigh was using Ivan as a mouthpiece, and Ivan was powerless to stop him.

“He followed you here for the sole purpose of helping you gain what you were after.  You ran away and left him behind, calling your name.  _Just like you left all the others._ ”

The muscles of Sherlock’s jaw tightened, but the creature spoke no word of protest.

“You brought them all here one by one – and one by one, you left them here to join Victor in his fate.  Finally, you stopped bothering even to make the journey yourself, and yet still they came, travel-worn and weary, battering at the gates.  Who sent them, if not you?”

Sherlock stirred at that, but remained silent.  The question echoed throughout the hall, but the echoes died away unanswered.  Perhaps Sherlock had no answer.  Ivan stared across the pool at the creature and thought, my sword lies two feet behind me.

“Finally, you brought this one.  Have you even told him your real purpose in coming here?  Or does he really believe that you’ve come solely to assist him?”  The words were still in Ivan’s voice, but the phrasing was off.  Absorbed in his game, Muircheartaigh seemed to have forgot the pretense that the questions were supposedly Ivan’s. 

Cautiously, Ivan attempted to flex his toes within his boots.  It took some concentration, but he was fairly sure that he could move his left big toe.

“Why bother telling him?” drawled Sherlock.  “The knowledge didn’t help the others.”

Make that both big toes.

Muircheartaigh giggled unpleasantly and spoke for the first time in his own voice.  “Efficient.  I like it.  But no qualms about misleading the unwary – or the stupid?  No misgivings deep in your heart?  Oh, silly me, I’ve forgot!  You don’t have one.”    

Ivan flexed his feet in his boots and tried stretching his hands as surreptitiously as possible.

“I told him his part.”  Sherlock shrugged.  The motion made his feathers rustle.  “It was to distract the guards while I got in, no more.  If he was too much of an idiot to run away afterwards, that’s hardly my problem.”

Idiot.  Right.  Ivan would remember that.

“And yet,” Muircheartaigh purred, “You’ve come after him, demanding that I let him go.”

“Come after him?  Hardly.  I’ve come seeking _you_.”  Sherlock smiled slowly.  “But you and I don’t need annoying distractions while we deal with the unfinished business between us.  Let him run away – or not, as you please.  And _do_ come down off that ridiculous chair.  Or are you keeping your distance to try and hide the fact that the large ruby at the front of your crown isn’t really a ruby at all but a mere spinel?”

“My dear, I’m hurt.  I would have thought that _you_ of all people would appreciate the importance of showing oneself off to best effect.” 

A palpable hit, that, thought Ivan as he discreetly flexed his knees and elbows slightly.  He’d only have one chance at this.  Behind him he heard the rustle of fabric that told him Muircheartaigh was standing, stepping forward.  Sherlock stared past Ivan, his attention completely held by the sorcerer.  It was time.

Ivan ducked and reached behind him to grab his sword, spinning on his heels as he rose again and sprang up the steps.  Behind him he heard the sweep of wings as Sherlock launched himself over the pool.

It almost worked.  Ivan managed to grasp Muircheartaigh’s ermine stole, only to have the stole slip from the sorcerer’s shoulders when Sherlock landed more or less on top of them both.  Muircheartaigh wriggled free and sprang back, his hands raised in a warding gesture.  Ivan’s thrusting sword slammed into an invisible wall, hard enough to make his shoulder ache.  Both he and Sherlock froze as Muircheartaigh, panting, began to smile – and then stopped and sniffed the air delicately.

“What is _that_?”  He was not smiling at all now, but rather glaring at Sherlock.  “What have you _done_?  It’s no good, you know.  I may have to rush off and deal with whatever little distraction you’ve arranged, but I _will_ find you again and your little pet as well.  You should have trained him not to bite, because I’m _angry_ with him.  Bad things happen to bad puppies.”  With that Muircheartaigh ducked behind the throne through a gap in the hangings and vanished.

“What did you do?” demanded Ivan as he picked up his sack and looking glass, “Apart from spoiling my attack, that is.”

“I rather think it was the other way around, but we don’t have to time to quibble.  I set fire to the keep.”

“Keep as in, the keep that we’re _inside_?”

“We won’t be exiting by the usual door.  Hurry, this way!”  Ivan followed Sherlock out of the hall and through a tangle of corridors, struggling to keep up with the other’s longer, claw-footed strides.  “Your friend Sanka wishes you luck, by the way.”

“Sanka...  You mean Sara?  Sara Dmitrievna?”

“She assisted with the fire.”

“Damn, I told her to get everyone clear!”

“ _I_ told _you_ to distract the guards,” Sherlock noted drily. “Wait a moment...  Left turn here.”

“I ran out of guards.  They fell apart on me.  Your doing?”

“The continuous widdershins motion of the slaves’ dance created a vortex that allowed Muircheartaigh to draw off their life energy and refocus it to animate the guards.  I located the, ah, item that Muircheartaigh was using as a focal point and smashed it.”

“Good job.  What was it?”

“Victor’s skull.  Right turn this time.”

“Sherlock, wait.” When Sherlock made to continue, Ivan grabbed him by one wing.  “Wait just a minute!  What Muircheartaigh said, about you and Victor...”

“We don’t have _time_ for this, Ivan Watovich.”

“What Muircheartaigh said, was it true?”

“Everything Muircheartaigh said was true – for a certain degree of truth.”

“He said you have no heart.”

“That also is true.”  Sherlock met Ivan’s gaze directly, silver eyes bright beneath the black plumes of his crest.  “Completely so.  Ivan Watovich, I must go, and if I leave you here, you will not survive.”  Ivan knew it.  The corridors were already noticeably hotter, and he could hear the sounds of falling masonry in the distance.

“Later, then.  Promise me you’ll explain later.  When this is all over.”

Sherlock gave him an odd look, then nodded.  “I promise.  And you should have this.”  He plucked a pale-blue feather from one wing and handed it to Ivan.  “If all else fails, get to a window or battlement and jump.  This will bring you safely to the ground.  Now come, we need to keep moving.”  And with that, Sherlock took off down the corridor.

“Thank you,” Ivan said as he jogged to catch up.

Sherlock shrugged, never slowing his strides.  “What you did, back there – that was good.”

More corridors.  Ivan was sweating in the heat now.  Then they hit a corridor Ivan thought he remembered.  And then, a staircase.

“Up this way.”

“Sherlock, wait!”

“We don’t have _time_ for this...”

But Ivan was already heading down the stairs.  The door that had stood open before was now locked, and Ivan swore.  “I saw Muircheartaigh in this room.  I think he was hiding something behind the hangings.”

“Anything he considers important enough to hide when he’s under invasion is likely to be of interest.  Step aside.”  Sherlock plucked a black feather from his head and inserted the shaft into the keyhole.  A moment’s work and he had the lock open.

“He was standing _here_ , reaching up through a gap between the hangings...  Oh!”  Set in the stone wall at about the height of a man’s head was a small metal door, also with a lock.  “Can you get this one too?”

“I think so.  But stand back – no, not in front of it, over there.”

Ivan watched with curiosity as Sherlock positioned himself facing the wall to one side of the spot Ivan had indicated.  He spread his wings slightly and leapt up from the floor.  As he grabbed hold of one of the brackets supporting the hangings, he also dug his clawed feet into the hangings to brace himself.  Then he manoeuvred his body until he could lean over and reach _down_ to the door.  He applied the black feather to the lock, eased the door open and...  Thud!  A crossbow bolt shot out of the door and embedded itself in the hangings on the other side of the room.

Ivan blinked, then shook his head.  “Well, if we didn’t think it was important _before_...”

Sherlock unhooked his claws, jumped lightly to the floor and reached into the opening in the wall, pulling out a small metal case.  This too was locked.  Sherlock examined the lock briefly as more masonry collapsed somewhere else in the keep.

“This will need more tools than I have here.  Take it upstairs.”  With that Sherlock thrust the case at Ivan.

Ivan took it and turned to go, but stopped at the door when he realized that Sherlock didn’t seem to be following.  Instead, the creature was going around the chamber, touching the hangings with his wingtip.  Wherever he touched, bright flames bloomed.

“Go!” yelled Sherlock, and ran for the door himself.  The two of them pounded up the staircase, pausing for breath only when they reached the topmost landing.

“Whatever exit you’d planned for us,” said Ivan, gasping for breath in the heat, “I hope it was up this way, because I don’t think we’re getting down again!”

Sherlock grinned.  Ivan found himself grinning back, trying to keep from breaking into laughter.  We’re insane, he thought, both of us.

The door at the top of staircase was, to Ivan’s surprise, unlocked.  “I didn’t have time to lock it behind me when I was interrupted previously,” Sherlock explained.  “And apparently _you_ interrupted Muircheartaigh before he got this far.”  He waved Ivan through the door, then closed and barred it behind them.

The chamber inside was an amazement of books and scrolls, of strange devices whose purpose Ivan could not guess.  Elaborate hangings embroidered with fantastic scenes covered the walls.  On cabinets and shelves, gemstones winked within cages of gold and silver wire, balanced on stands of ivory and rare woods.  At the centre of the chamber stood a large round table and in the centre of the table, an empty stand.  Whitish powder and fragments of bone lay scattered about its base.

Victor, thought Ivan.  He turned to Sherlock to – to say something, he wasn’t sure what.  To offer condolences?  Ask questions?  But Sherlock was already striding towards the table, sweeping scrolls to the floor to clear a space, snapping his fingers for the case Ivan carried.

Ivan handed it over and began to circle the room, searching for the exit they’d presumably need, for entrances to guard.  He found neither.  Sherlock, who presumably had some sort of exit in mind, was busy muttering to himself as he examined the casket.

“I need a power source,” the creature announced suddenly.  His wings flexed, feathers rustling, in an apparently unconscious display of impatience.  He too began to circle the room, picking up and discarding bits and pieces of things, until he came face to face with Ivan.  The silver eyes narrowed.

“That will do.”  And with no more warning, he grabbed the cord around Ivan’s neck that held the tsar’s signet ring and began to tow Ivan towards the table by it.

“Oi, wait!  Just wait a minute, you don’t have to strangle me!”  Ivan yanked the cord out of Sherlock’s grasp and pulled it up over his head.  “Here you go.  But it’s not a magic ring.”

“It is, however, a ring recognized as symbolizing power, which is all that I need.”  Sherlock attached the ring with a pair of wires to a small, glittering device, then attached another wire to the black feather he still carried.

“What’s that?” Ivan dared to ask, pointing at the device.

“Amplifier,” muttered Sherlock.  Holding the feather carefully, he nudged the tip of the shaft into the keyhole of the case’s lock.  Sparks popped and snapped.  He inserted the shaft a hair deeper with a twisting motion.  There was a flash of light, a particularly loud snap – and the lock fell open.  The air smelled of burnt feathers.

“Now to see what’s in here...”

“Yes,” inserted a lilting and very unwelcome voice, “let’s have a look at that, shall we?”

Muircheartaigh stepped out from behind the hangings.  Gone were his crown, his sceptre, his ermine stole.  He wore only his black robes.  The hem was noticeably singed.  “Did you think that little girl would be able to distract me for long?”

Little girl?, thought Ivan.  Then: _Sara_.

“Granted, she was somewhat amusing.  While she lasted.”             

Ivan drew his sword and stepped forward, only to be stopped by Sherlock’s suddenly outspread wings.  “Stay behind me, Ivan Watovich.  My wings will offer you some protection from his spells,” Sherlock hissed.

“How touching!  Still trusting our Vanechka at your back, are you?  He stabbed one of my guards from behind, you know.”

“Your guards weren’t human!” yelled Ivan.        

“Neither is Sherlock, or haven’t you realized that by now?  Perhaps he’s right to think that you’re just too stupid to understand how badly he’s betrayed you.”

Ivan placed one hand on Sherlock’s back, willing him to be calm, and addressed Muircheartaigh.  “Perhaps I _might_ understand if you would bother to explain.”

“Perhaps _Sherlock_ should explain.  He can start by telling you what he expects to find in that case.”

“Sherlock?” asked Ivan quietly.  He felt Sherlock’s back move as the creature took a deep breath.

“It’s common for sorcerers of Muircheartaigh’s type...”

“Of my _type_?” screeched Muircheartaigh.  “I have no ‘type.’ There’s no one else as powerful – and only one person with the potential to be.”

“Quiet!” snapped Ivan.  “You said he should be the one to explain, now let him do so.  Sherlock?”

“They protect themselves by placing their hearts in other vessels.  As long as their hearts beat, they can not be killed.  Conversely, one can destroy the sorcerer by destroying his heart.  Muircheartaigh’s most closely guarded treasure can be nothing else.”

“Oh, you’re so wrong, my dear,” Muircheartaigh crooned.  “Watching you realize how wrong you are is going to be fun, but watching our Vanechka realize the truth is going be _delicious_.”

“Hand me the case, Sherlock,” said Ivan in a low voice as he sheathed his sword.  “Keep your eyes on Muircheartaigh, but reach back and hand it to me.”  The stones of the tower rumbled beneath him as he spoke.  He could feel a fine tremour in the floor through his boots.

“Yes, please do, Sherlock!  Let him see for himself!”

Sherlock complied.  Ivan started to open the case, then paused.  “Am I worried about stray crossbow bolts?”

Judging by Muircheartaigh’s giggles, the sorcerer seemed to find the question hilarious.  “No, Vanechka, this time the contents themselves will have sufficient _impact_.”

Ivan took a deep breath and opened the case.  Inside, on gleaming silk, lay... _two_ hearts.  Two identical _living_ hearts, both crimson red, beating in time with each other.

“Do you see now, Vanechka?  Do you understand?  At heart, Sherlock and I are _exactly the same_.  You can choose to destroy both hearts – or neither.  I suppose you could even destroy one heart at random, just to find out whose it is.  Are you a gambling man, Vanechka?”  Muircheartaigh giggled again.  The sound scraped at Ivan’s ears.      

Ivan nudged Sherlock’s back and muttered, “Talk!”  He moved slightly sideways, more directly behind Sherlock, the better to hide his actions from Muircheartaigh’s view, and fumbled for the looking glass on its cord around his neck.

“The same?” growled Sherlock.  “ _I_ am the not the one who would have culled the citizens of London like cattle to fuel my experiments.”

Ivan, who’d been expecting something more along the line of vague but murderous threats, almost dropped the looking glass.  Where the hell was this London place? 

Muircheartaigh giggled again.  “Be honest, Sherlock.  My work fascinated you.  That’s why you offered yourself to me as an apprentice.”

“That was a ruse to gain more information – and it worked.”

Muircheartaigh’s amusement vanished.  “Your so-called ‘ruse’ only worked because it was true,” he hissed.  “I would have seen through a lie, Sherlock.  You _wanted_ what I could teach you, you _wanted_ everything I knew and could learn.  _You wanted to be me_.  You just couldn’t stomach the cost.”

Seen through the glass, the contents of the case looked quite different.  The heart on the right was black and shrivelled, its beats jerky and irregular, while the red, healthy heart on the left beat strongly and well.

“People were dying,” answered Sherlock.

“That’s what people _do_ ,” Muircheartaigh screamed.  “They live their stupid little lives and then they _die_.  At least I ensured they were dying for a _reason_.”

“Your reason, not their own!”

Ivan’s sword was ready on his hip, but could plain steel be relied on to kill a sorcerer’s heart?  He let the glass drop and studied Sherlock’s wings, then reached out to trace one deep gold feather to its base.  Grasping the shaft carefully but firmly, he tugged lightly to warn Sherlock of his intentions.

“All the better – my reason was worth something!  Only one of those deaths was wasted, Sherlock, and that was the one _you_ caused the night you betrayed me to your brother’s guards.”

Ivan plucked the feather free.  If Sherlock flinched at this moment – and he did, just a bit – it would appear to be in response to Muircheartaigh’s accusation.  Working quickly, Ivan held the case against his body with one arm while he placed the feather between the index and ring finger of his other hand.  Then he poised that hand over the heart he knew to be Muircheartaigh’s.  He would only get one chance at this.

“I was trying to save the boy’s life.”  Sherlock’s voice was low, beaten.

“And I’m sure his parents were grateful for your _attempt_ ,” Muircheartaigh sneered.

In one smooth series of motions, Ivan plucked Muircheartaigh’s heart from the case, bent to lay it on the stone floor and touched it with the tip of the golden feather.  The heart burst into flame – and so, with a shriek, did Muircheartaigh.

The sorcerer burnt as if he were dry tinder rather than flesh and bone.  Sparks flew everywhere, igniting the books and scrolls they landed on, and the flames began to spread.

The tower groaned beneath their feet.  The floor pitched as if it were the deck of a storm-struck ship.  A hanging fell to the ground, revealing a crack in the wall behind it.  Ivan ran to the chamber’s door and unbarred it, only to be met with a roar of flame when he threw it open.

“Sherlock,” he yelled, “We’ve got to get out of here!”

But Sherlock dropped to one knee and planted his palm flat against the floor.  The motion stilled, although not completely.  “The tower was held together as much by Muircheartaigh’s magic as by mortar.  I can will the flames themselves to bind it for a while longer, long enough for you to get clear.”

“For _both_ of us to get clear, you mean.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “Of course!  Does this look like the sort of place I would choose for a funeral pyre?  Now take the case and your father’s ring and _go_.”

Ivan grabbed the ring and, for good measure, the black feather.  He hung the ring around his neck and placed all three feathers – black, gold and blue – in the case with Sherlock’s heart, then closed it.  But... go where? 

“Didn’t you mark where Muircheartaigh entered?” Sherlock snapped.  “Behind that hanging – no, not that one, the one I’m pointing at!  The stairs will take you up to the battlements.  Jump as soon as you can.”  His voice was hoarse and his pale face shone with sweat amidst the black feathers.

“Sherlock, are you sure?”

“I’m sure that if we waste time dithering we will both _die_.  Now, go!”

“You’ll be right behind me, yes?”

Sherlock looked him straight in the eye.  “What do you think?  You’re carrying my heart.  _Go_ , Ivan Watovich.”

Ivan went, through the hangings and up the narrow, twisting stairs.  He could feel the tower quivering beneath him like a nervous horse.  When he emerged onto the battlements, the sight that met his eyes was appalling.  The entire keep was in flames, the southern tower already collapsed in a sprawl of loose stone.  Flames flared from all the windows in the walls that still stood.  For the first time, he understood the enormity of the task Sherlock had undertaken and wondered how long the creature could sustain the effort.

No time to waste then.  Ivan climbed up upon the wall.  The ground was far below, and oh, by all that was holy, he did _not_ want to do this.  But he held the case against his chest with one hand and used the other to steady his sheathed sword against his thigh.  He whispered a brief prayer to whatever gods might be listening.  And then, trying to throw himself as far out from the tower walls as possible, he jumped.

For one horrible moment, he fell freely, the wind whistling past his ears as his stomach made a good attempt to climb into his throat.  In the next moment, something changed.  Something _caught_ , like a grappling hook finding purchase on a wall.  Something held his weight as he floated gently to the ground several yards out from the tower walls.

He landed with barely a stumble and looked up at the tower to see – nothing but stone and flames.  “Sherlock!” he yelled.  “Sherlock, you idiot, I’m clear!  Get out of there!”

With a thundering roar, the main part of the keep collapsed.  The northern tower, standing alone now, was visibly shaking.  “Sherlock!” Ivan cried as he charged towards its base – or tried to, for he was suddenly seized from behind.  His captors weren’t strong enough to hold him, but as he fought his way free, the top of the tower exploded in a shower of stone and sparks.

“We need to get out of here, Stolitsky!” a woman screamed in his ear as fragments rained down around them.  “It’s going to collapse!”

“Sherlock...”

“Will have to take care of himself.”

Still Ivan would have argued, except that the tower began to emit a low rumble.  This was it, he knew, and he retreated back past the crumbling courtyard walls and the fallen gate to the shelter of the trees.  His captors – both of them – followed.

The tower collapsed, stones sprayed across the spot where Ivan and the other two had been standing moments before.  When the ruins finally settled, everything was silent except for the snapping and popping of the remaining fires.

There was no sign of Sherlock.


	6. Chapter 6

“You hit me,” whined a man.  Ivan whirled around to see one of the former slaves, his nose too large – and at the moment, bleeding profusely – in his thin face.

“You grabbed a trained soldier from behind and caught an elbow in the nose, Andreyev,” spat the woman.  “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.  Now let’s go.”

“One moment, gospozha,” said Ivan.  His voice was not quite steady.  “You have the advantage of me.”

Gaunt and hardened, the woman’s face still held traces of exotic beauty.  “Sarya Tyuleneva.  That’s Msti Andreyev.  _Now_ can we go?”

Ivan turned to take one last look at the remains of the tower.  “You’re better off without him,” said Tyuleneva behind him.  “You’d’ve found that out for yourself, sooner or later.”

She and Andreyev began to move off.  After a moment, Ivan followed them.  He stopped, however, when he caught sight of one of the blazes he’d left.  “I’m going this way,” he said, motioning to his left, “You can come with me or not.”

“Usacheva said bring you back to camp.  She didn’t say anything about going for a stroll first,” argued Tyuleneva.  Andreyev nodded, one hand still held over his nose.

“Usacheva?” Ivan blurted.  “Sara Dmitrievna?  She’s alive?”

Tyuleneva looked puzzled, but nodded.  “She sent us to get you if you survived.”

Ivan cursed Muircheartaigh’s lies and straightened his shoulders, one hand on his sword hilt.

“Thank you for that, but there’s a wide sea between me and my homeland – and judging by your speech, between you and yours as well.  Gospozha Usacheva won’t be pleased to learn that we’ve left the price of passage by ship behind us just because you were in a hurry.” 

With that, Ivan strode off, not caring if the others followed or not.  Behind him, he heard Andreyev whining about the extra walking and how his boots hurt his feet.  But Tyuleneva and Andreyev did follow, all the way back to the clearing where – sweet gods, was it just last night? – Ivan and Sherlock had camped.  Together.  Ivan shook his head to clear his thoughts and headed for the tree where he’d hidden the jewels.  The bundle was still there, and he slipped it into his shirt.  Taking up the case he’d taken from the castle, he turned to Tyuleneva and Andreyev.

“Now,” he said, “Take me to your leader.” 

Starving and exhausted, the former slaves had not got very far from the castle.  They’d taken the guards’ gear, but none of it fit well and the chainmail was heavy for weakened bodies to wear.  Only Tyuleneva and another man, introduced as Pasha Svinarnikov, looked as if they might actually know how to use the swords they carried.

“Food’s one of our biggest problems,” Sara Dmitrievna explained, after Svinarnikov had shown Ivan to a stream where he could wash the ashes and dust off his face.  “Tyuleneva and Svinarnikov have tried hunting, but there’s no game.  And most of plants here are different from the ones we’re familiar with, so we don’t know what’s safe to eat.  With everyone already weakened, I don’t want to risk even vomiting or diarrhea, let alone more serious effects.”

“I may be able to help you there,” said Ivan, drawing Marfa Hudovna’s sack from his belt and reaching into it.  He half expected to draw forth more pastries, but instead he found four loaves of fresh rye bread and a dozen ripe, juicy apples.  When he looked up, he discovered that everyone else had gathered around him, their eyes huge in their starved faces.  Andreyev was actually drooling. 

Ivan began to tear pieces off one of the loaves and hand them out.  “Easy, easy now.  Chew it thoroughly.  There’s plenty more.”

“You don’t want to make yourselves ill,” Sara confirmed.  She held her own piece of bread in both hands and took small, precise bites, setting an example for the others to follow.

One man, pale and silent, didn’t seem to realize at first that the bread was food.  He sniffed it cautiously and eventually licked it, but made no move to put it into his mouth.  The woman sitting next to him tore off a bite-size piece, placed it in his mouth and gently began to move his jaw up and down.  After a moment, he began chewing on his own.

Another woman fell on bread so ravenously that Svinarnikov had to restrain her from jamming the entire piece into her mouth at once.  She babbled nonsensically and continuously, her mouth open as she chewed.

Ivan thought her chances of survival were higher than the silent man’s.  But at least they had chances.  _Sherlock_.  The bite of apple Ivan had taken stuck in his throat.  His eyes stung, not entirely from the after-effects of the smoke.  He remembered Sherlock as he had last seen the creature.  Sherlock was, _had been_ no sorcerer, learning magic through careful study.  His magic was innate, rising from the very core of his being.  And the last thing he had used it for was to buy Ivan time to escape.  Sherlock _had been_ beautiful and amazing.  Now he was ash and burnt bone.

Enough of this.  Sherlock was beyond his help, but these people needed him to think and plan and find a way to get them home.

“We don’t even know how far it is to the coast,” he muttered, thinking aloud.

“Three days’ ride,” said Sara.

Ivan started.  “What?”

“I _might_ have got turned around occasionally, but I don’t think so.  Of course, at the time I was in better shape, with more suitable gear – and a horse!  It will take us longer now.”  Her eyes scanned the others as she spoke, tallying their weaknesses, weighing their chances.  She too, Ivan realized, was thinking and planning.

“Sherlock didn’t bring you here, then?”

“Sherlock?  Oh!  Tall, feathered and bossy?”

Ivan sat up straight, suddenly angry.

“I’m sorry, I know you and he were... very close,” Sara apologized.  Before Ivan could correct her, she went on.  “But I’d never seen him before he landed almost on top of me, demanding to know where you were.  Then he got angry at me for ‘allowing’ you to ‘run off’ and insisted I help him burn down the keep to make up for it.  He...  He must have cared for you a great deal,” she finished more gently.

It wasn’t like that, Ivan didn’t say.  I only met him yesterday, he didn’t explain.  Because somehow, at some unmarked point, it had become _exactly_ like that.

***

The simple meal seemed to have sent everyone into a stupor.  Ivan found himself drifting off as well as the battle fever that had carried him this far began to ebb.  Asleep, he dreamed of apples and horses and jam – comfortable, homelike things, and yet something was missing.  He couldn’t remember what, but its absence made all comfort hollow.

When he smelled smoke, he thought at first he was still dreaming.  Then he woke more completely to discover that dusk was setting in.  Someone had got a campfire going.

Ivan checked the sack and distributed more food: bread and apples, along with a pot of soft cheese.  When Sara thanked him for it, he shrugged.  “We’re all in this together.  I’ve got a sackful of food and a sword.  Someone else obviously has a knack for building campfires.”

Sara laughed.  “I cheated a bit.  I used – oh, I have something of yours!”

Ivan watched, mystified, as she drew from her sleeve – two feathers.  One was gold and somewhat sooty.  The other was crimson and matted with dried blood.

“Sherlock gave me the gold feather to set fires around the keep.  It’s been very useful, but perhaps...”  She bit her lip, obviously not fond of the idea of giving away the gold feather.

“It’s all right,” said Ivan.  “I have one of my own.  But – the other?”

“Is yours,” Sara replied firmly, and she handed it to him.

Red, gold, blue and black.  The only magic left in Ivan’s life now that Sherlock was gone.  He’d got along perfectly without magic before he met Sherlock, of course.  Maybe he should just give the feathers to Marfa Hudovna as a sort of condolence gift.

Shaking his head at himself, Ivan opened the case to place the crimson feather with its fellows.  Inside the case lay the other three feathers.  And a red, steadily beating heart.  Sherlock’s heart.  Alive.

“Ivan Watovich, what is it?” asked Sara, keeping her voice down so as not to alarm the others.  “You look as if...”

“He’s alive, that mad bastard!”

“Muircheartaigh?”

“Sherlock.  His heart.  I don’t know how, but – Sara, he’s _alive_.”  Ivan’s voice caught, and his vision was blurred.  When he reached to wipe his eyes, his hand came away wet with tears.   

From the sudden silence among the others, Ivan knew they had overheard him.  Then he heard Tyuleneva curse on the other side of the fire and looked up in time to see her spit into the flames.  Ivan, furious, clapped the case shut and leapt to his feet, his hand on his sword hilt.  Tyuleneva did the same, followed by Svinarnikov and then, unexpectedly, Sara.

“Hold!” she commanded.  Tyuleneva twitched, but held her place.  So did everyone else.

“Sarya Tyuleneva, as you are entitled to your anger, so Ivan is to his joy.  We have a long journey ahead.  We won’t survive by fighting each other.  Now apologize.”

Ivan, his anger already cooling, refrained from saying an apology wasn’t necessary.  To do so would diminish the authority Sara Dmitrievna had obviously gained.

Tyuleneva glared a moment longer, then muttered, “Sorry,” and sat back down next to Andreyev, who whispered something in her ear.

Ivan and Sara sat down as well, and Svinarnikov came around the fire to sit by them.  “You were a soldier, am I right?” he asked Ivan.

“Yes, and you?”

“A household guard.  Tell me of the wars – what’s it like, living on the front?”

It was an obvious distraction, but one Ivan was grateful for.  They spent the rest of the evening telling tales, but the entire time Ivan’s heart sang, he’s alive.  Sherlock’s alive.

***

Feeling livelier for food and rest the next morning, Sara Dmitrievna, Svinarnikov, Tyuleneva and Andreyev were determined to rid themselves of their long, matted hair.  They would not set forth before using the knives they’d taken from the guards for a general barbering session.  Even the babbling madwoman, the silent man and his equally silent companion submitted cooperatively to being trimmed up.  Finally, however, the company was ready to get underway.    

Sara and Svinarnikov, who had also arrived at Muircheartaigh’s castle by horse, were confident that if they travelled west, they would come upon a road that would take them to a seaport.  West they all headed, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, but they made slow progress.  The pale, silent man would not move unless tugged along by his companion.  The madwoman, on the other hand, was likely to strike out at any moment in random directions if not watched carefully.

Andreyev complained almost continuously but moved along with surprising steadiness.  Tyuleneva kept pace beside him, leaving Ivan, Sara and Svinarnikov to tend to the others.  All of the former captives tired easily, requiring frequent stops to rest and have a bite to eat.  The sack continued to provide bread, apples, cheese, dried meat and the occasional welcome surprise – hot pirozhki one time, jam pastries another.

Despite occasional twinges of pain and stiffness in his shoulder, Ivan found himself the most able-bodied member of the company.  He enjoyed the easy walking in the pleasant weather.  He slept soundly at night, his sword close to hand and the case containing Sherlock’s heart tucked in against his chest.  Ivan’s dreams played themselves out to the lub-dub of the heart’s steady beat, but he never remembered the details in the morning.

The second day was much the same as the first, but the third started off with Andreyev declaring that he was tired of apples.  Why couldn’t there be plums?  Or apricots?  Why always apples?  Finally even Tyuleneva, apple juice shining on her chin, told him to “shut it.”  When the company finally got underway, she walked alone.

Ivan casually fell in alongside her.  “So,” he began after they’d covered a few yards.  “I was a soldier, and Svinarnikov was a guard.  Where’d _you_ learn to use a sword?”

“Is this your idea of subtlety, Stolitsky?”

“My idea, Tyuleneva, is that we’re going to be on this road together a long time.  The more we know about each other’s skills and experience, the better off we’ll be as a group.”

For a few paces more she was silent.  Then: “I was the best fighter in my village _and_ the best tracker, one of the toughest for withstanding any kind of physical hardship.  Our harvests failed two years in a row.  Our pregnant animals miscarried or gave birth to freaks.  Pregnant women,” she drew in a breath, let it out, “My sister died trying to birth a monster.  It died too, thank the gods.”

“A traveller passing through, he said he’d heard of the same happening in other villages, said it was sorcery.  But he also said he’d heard tell of a magical creature who lived far to the east who might be able to help.  Someone had to go, and I was the one chosen.”

“You journeyed, and you found Sherlock.”

“Damn right I did!  I made the journey and passed all his stupid tests, the rye field, the well, the pile of wood.”  She shot a sideways glance at Ivan.  “You _did_ realize they were tests, yes?”

Ivan shrugged.  “I suspected it.  But I was also helping people who’d offered to help me.  It seemed fair enough.”

“I passed them all and then found out they’d been set by a freak just like the ones being born back in my village, except maybe a bit fairer to look at.”

“Wait a moment, I’m not sure I’d call Sherlock...”

“A freak?  I would.  He is – was – is.  How freakish is that, having someone else carrying your heart around for you?”

Remembering Muircheartaigh, Ivan was fairly sure that being separated from his heart hadn’t been Sherlock’s idea.  However, he was here to listen to Tyuleneva’s story, not to argue with her, so he merely shrugged again.

“I told him what I’d come for.  He tried to turn me away, but I wasn’t having it.  Finally he picked me up and flew us to the castle.  Almost froze my – it was a cold journey.  But I hung on and we got here, we got to the castle gates and _then_ the freak told me my ‘job’ was to ‘distract the guards’!  As if I were some floozy in a low-cut gown, good for nothing else!”

“We were arguing about it when the gates opened anyway, with the guards ranged in a row just inside.  The freak said that it was a trick, but I know a chance when I see one.  I attacked and took out two guards, got through the line and ran like hell towards the keep.  I thought even a freak would have enough guts to follow once I’d cut us an opening, but I was wrong.  I glanced around, saw I was alone, and then I tripped.  Or something.  I...  I don’t remember.  After that...  There’s a lot I don’t remember.”

Her voice was low as she finished.

“I’m sorry,” offered Ivan.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Tyuleneva snapped.  “I’m a fighter, and I went down fighting.  You’re so keen to hear stories, you should ask Andreyev his.  No one thinks much of him, but he’s not a fighter.  He never should have come here at all, but he’s survived.  He was bespelled longer than I was, but he outlasted some who came after me.  They didn’t survive, he did.”

“Spasibo, Tyuleneva.  You’ve given me much to think about.”

***   

The sixth day out, one of the streams they drank from apparently had bad water, because everyone got the flux.  It was bad enough for Ivan but worse for the others who were just beginning to recover from starvation.  The sack gave them only plain bread and apples to eat.

The worst off was the silent man, who fell into a fever.  When they camped that night, his companion knelt next to him, bathing his forehead with cool water.  Sara Dmitrievna brewed a tea from willow bark, and the two women together got him to drink it, but to no avail.  In the morning, he could not be roused from unconsciousness.  By noon, he was dead.

The deepest grave they could dig for him was a shallow, pitiful thing, but they piled rocks on top to keep the forest beasts away.  There was little to be said.  No one knew his name except, presumably, his widow.  She crouched by the grave with her arms wrapped around her shins and her face tucked against her knees, rocking ceaselessly.

Andreyev thought he remembered that they were both still speaking a bit when he first arrived at the castle, but that was all he remembered and he wasn’t even sure about that much.

It was clear that the company was going no further that day, so they camped a second night in the same place.  When they ate supper, Sara went to the grave and set some bread and an apple down on a kerchief next to the grieving woman, but it seemed doubtful that she would eat.

They were a quiet company as they sat around the fire after supper until Andreyev, watching the woman at the graveside, mused aloud, “I wonder if my wife waits for me.”

“You’re married?” asked Ivan, somewhat surprised.

“I don’t know.  I am – or I was.  It’s been...  I don’t remember how long it’s been.”  Andreyev sighed and looked into the flames.  “She was beautiful, my wife.  Too beautiful, perhaps, for I was a clerk in a lord’s household and she caught the lord’s eye.  Still, we had no trouble until the murder.”

“Someone murdered the lord?” asked Svinarnikov.  It struck Ivan that neither Svinarnikov nor Sara Dmitrievna appeared to have heard this tale before.

“No, no!  One of the other clerks was found dead in the room where we kept accounts.  It was a curious death, for the only door was barred from the inside.  The lord’s guards had to break it down.”

“Windows,” suggested Svinarnikov sagely.

“There were none.  The lord said that I must have done it and sentenced me to death.  But when I protested, he said he would be merciful.  His mercy was to grant me a year and a day to prove my innocence by finding the true murderer.”

“My wife said we should run.  Her brother lived in a town far away and would shelter us.  But the lord’s guards caught us at the gates.  The lord said he would keep my wife as surety for my return, then had his guards throw me out.”

“I didn’t know what to do or where to go, but a man in a tavern said I should take the tale of the unsolved crime to Sherlock Holmes, who lived far to the east.  So, I headed east.  It was a long journey, but after much hardship, I came to the forest where Sherlock was said to live.”

“You passed the tests, then,” Ivan commented.

“The tests Tyuleneva speaks of?  No, there were no tests.  I was told that Sherlock lived in a house in the forest and that is where I found him, although I had been expecting a man and not some feathered monstrosity.  Nor had I expected that his response to my tale would be to tell me that I’d been cheating on my wife with the murdered clerk and that I was right to suspect that the child she’d miscarried wasn’t mine.  Then the creature sniffed that a simple locked-room murder was hardly even a five and that he was only taking it because he was bored.  Without further warning, he grabbed me and took off into the air!  By the time we landed, I was near dead from both cold and terror.”

Ivan wondered if Andreyev was the fellow who had pissed himself, but decided not to ask.

“When the creature proposed that we should invade the castle, the two of us alone, I saw this for the madness it was and escaped into the forest.  But my path was turned around through some trickery...”

Or lack of woodcraft, more likely, thought Ivan.

“...and I ended up back at the castle gates.  The guards spotted me and gave cry and then – something happened.  Something...”  Andreyev looked vaguely distressed.  Tyuleneva, sitting at his side, put her arm around his shoulders.  “I don’t remember.  It was a long time ago.”

A silence followed, broken when Svinarnikov contributed, “My lord’s family was haunted by the spectre of a gigantic hound.  It was said that Sherlock Holmes would know how to break the curse, so I volunteered to seek him.  But I never saw the creature before the day Muircheartaigh’s spell was broken.”

“There was a plague.  People were dying.  I sought a cure,” said Sara simply.

“This Sherlock must have a cruel tongue, to speak such lies about you and your wife,” Svinarnikov added, addressing Andreyev.

But when Andreyev turned red and lowered his eyes, they all realized that Sherlock’s words, however cruel, had been true.  None knew what to say until Tyuleneva broke the awkward silence.  “It’s a trick he uses, to make his suitors feel ashamed that they might bend more easily to his supposedly greater genius.  He told me that I had been driven to learn to fight because my father killed my mother in a drunken rage.  As if everyone in my village didn’t already know that!”   

Except, thought Ivan, that Sherlock had presumably never been to your village.

“I love my wife,” said Andreyev in a low voice, “Things were not always easy between us, but truly, I love her still.”

They turned in shortly after that, and Ivan did not think that anyone slept easily that night.  In the morning, however, a strange sight greeted their eyes.  The madwoman sat at the graveside, patting the widow’s arm and bowed head, crooning nonsense to her.  When Sara brought breakfast for the two of them, it was the madwoman who coaxed the widow to eat.  And when the time came to leave, it was the madwoman – crooning and babbling all the while – who pulled the widow to her feet and got her walking. 


	7. Chapter 7

By Ivan’s reckoning they came to the road a fortnight after escaping Muircheartaigh’s castle.  By then they had taken to calling the widow and the madwoman Bezmolva and Bezumtsa respectively.  The two were always together.  In each other’s company, Bezumtsa seemed just a bit more calm and Bezmolva, just a bit less sad.

Wagons passed them by as they walked along the road to the seaport, the drivers often glancing curiously at the company.  Many had room to carry a passenger or three and might have been glad to do so for a bit of the gold Ivan carried inside his shirt.  But none had room for all seven of them.  Sara Dmitrievna was adamant that the company not be separated, a judgement with which Ivan agreed.

After twelve days on the road, they crested one final hill and looked down to see the port lying spread before them.  The wind suddenly carried a trace of salt.  Ivan saw Bezmolva raise her head and take a deep breath, a light coming into her eyes that had not been there before. 

When they arrived at the docks, Ivan was glad not to have spent gold on wagon rides.  It was late in the shipping season, and the captains were reluctant to set forth.  It took almost all the gold and jewels Ivan carried to convince one of them to provide the company with passage home.

While the company waited for the ship to be provisioned, Ivan spent the remainder of Harrieta’s jewels on warm clothes for the sea voyage.  The very last gold piece went for a trip to the bath house, a welcome experience for all of them after weeks on the road, washing up as best they could in cold streams.

The day they embarked was drizzly and grey.  The second mate stood at the foot of the gangplank, inscribing each passenger’s name in a log as they came aboard.  Ivan stood by as well, waiting until all the others should be safely aboard.  He winced to himself as Bezmolva and Bezumtsa approached the gangplank, realizing that the names given in affection might seem cruel to outsiders.  But just as he was about to explain, Bezmolva announced in a clear voice, “I am called Nadya – Nadezhda.  My companion is Radost’, called Rada.”  Then, her back straight and her head high, she assisted Bezumtsa, now Rada, up the gangplank.

As predicted, the crossing was stormy.  Almost all of the company were ill at one time or another, and poor Andreyev never did gain his sea legs.  The exceptions were Nadya and Rada, who could be found on deck in all but the stormiest weather, watching the sailors go about the work of the ship with great interest.  Ivan observed that the second mate seemed to take special care of them, often bringing them mugs of hot tea and stopping to talk awhile with Nadya. 

He saw also that Nadya had changed in appearance over the weeks since their escape from Muircheartaigh’s castle.  Worn and weary as she had been when he first saw her, he had gained the impression that she was of some age.  But the meals provided by the magic sack had put flesh on her bones and the salt air put colour in her cheeks.  Ivan saw now that she was younger than he had thought and passably fair to look at, with a straight carriage, a pleasant voice and a quiet manner.

With this in mind, Ivan approached the captain and asked what sort of person the second mate might be.  “An honest man and a steady worker,” came the answer.  Then the captain, eying Ivan shrewdly, added, “He owns a small house back in port, but both his wife and his mother died of a fever two winters back.  Ever since then the house has stood empty while he’s at sea.”

This information sorted well with Ivan’s own observations of the man – and Sara Dmitrievna’s as well, when he discussed the matter with her.

On a cold, sunny day, the ship sailed into the easternmost seaport of Ivan’s homeland.  As soon as the ship was tied off at the dock, Ivan called on the port master.  Showing the tsar’s signet ring, he asked that a message be sent to the nearest imperial garrison, and this was done.

When the time came for the rest of the company to disembark, however, the second mate approached Ivan, Nadya and Rada following behind him.  “Gospodin, with your permission I would ask Gospozha Nadezhda for her hand in marriage, swearing that her companion Radost’ shall have a home with us for as long as we live.”

The shy smile on Nadya’s face told Ivan all he needed to know about her consent, so he gave his permission on the condition that the marriage should take place before Nadya and Rada re-embarked for the return voyage.  This was done, with all of the company as well as the ship’s captain and the first mate attending the wedding.

The garrison commander turned out to be a veteran of the wars of the southern mountains who knew some of the men Ivan had fought beside.  The most recent news he had from the capital was old but hopeful.  At last report, the nobles had still been holding to their promise to grant Tsar Watt a year and a day.

Ivan requested horses and an escort of soldiers for a journey to the capital, then sat up late that night writing letters by lamplight to his father, Harrieta and Uilleam an t-Moireach.  He asked his father to render his companions all assistance in returning to their homes or wherever else they might want to go.  Andreyev had already declared, with surprising ferocity, his determination to return to his former lord’s castle and to find out what had happened to his wife.  Tyuleneva had declared – and this was no surprise – that she would accompany Andreyev.  Ivan suggested in his letter to his father that it might be appropriate to lend the pair an armed escort as well, in case Tyuleneva should need back-up.

The next morning, Ivan knocked at Sara Dmitrievna’s door, the sealed letters and the tsar’s ring in one hand.  He felt somewhat awkward.  Sara was an attractive woman – intelligent, brave and fair to look at.  They had enjoyed each other’s company greatly during the long journey, but now Ivan worried that this might have given rise to certain expectations on her part.

His self-consciousness only increased when Sara opened the door, took one look at his face and burst into laughter, however quickly she stifled it and ushered him inside.

“Ivan Watovich, I have known where you were headed from the day I met you, and I have known that it was not with me, not for long,” she said forthrightly.  “But I hope you’ve explained all this to your family in those letters you hold, so that I won’t have to do it for you!”

“Yes, one of the letters is to my father, another to my sister.  I, ah, mentioned you in both.  What do you know about curing drunkenness?”

Sara blinked at what appeared to be a change of topic but answered readily enough, “The gem amethyst is called thus because it is said to be efficacious for this purpose.  And there are certain herbs that can be useful as well.  But you ask because...?”

“My sister Harrieta Watovna is a fine woman, quick-witted and high-spirited, far better suited to hold the throne than I am.  But to do this she must be married.  Drink is her great weakness and the chief reason her previous wife left her.”

“Well, then,” said Sara, her eyes sparkling, “I can certainly meet with her to see what might be done.  If I fail, hmmm, I think that Svinarnikov might at least know several hangover cures.”

“Alas,” said Ivan with mock gravity, “My sister’s eyes have long been drawn to other women.”

“Poor Svinarnikov.  But to be honest, this is a trait your sister and I share.  I would have told you long before now if I had ever seriously thought you might propose to me.”

Ivan couldn’t help laughing, mostly at himself.  “Sara Dmitrievna, this is _not_ how I thought this conversation would go!  Luck be with you – I hope I may one day greet you as my sister-in-law.”

“Luck be with you as well, Ivan Watovich,” said Sara, and she kissed him on the cheek.

***

This time Ivan cared not for anonymity but rather chose his horse for speed and endurance on the road.  He rode out of the garrison on a chestnut stallion with a white blaze down its forehead, carrying with him Marfa Hudovna’s gifts and, wrapped in an old shirt in one of his saddle bags, the case that held Sherlock’s heart and feathers.

He rode mainly west but whenever a choice of westward roads presented itself, he chose the road tending north.  Thus he came eventually to the stone bridge that spanned the river running down from the mountains and crossed it to enter the haunted forest beyond.  Ivan looked neither to the left nor to the right, but spurred his horse forward along the forest track, his heart beating hard.

Suddenly, a horse neighed up ahead.  The chestnut stallion neighed in response.  A few more paces and the trees thinned and Ivan came in sight of Marfa Hudovna’s house.  But here he saw something strange, for in front of the house stood a well-grown apple tree, bearing blossoms and fruit together.  Next to the tree, grazing on windfalls, stood Bezimyan.

Ivan dismounted and went to stroke his old friend’s nose.  As he was doing so, the house door flew open and Marfa Hudovna came running out.  She embraced Ivan as if he were her son, and he hugged her in return.

“Marfa Hudovna, how long have I been gone?  For I know this tree was not here the last time I came to your house.”

But she only laughed and bade him look at the tree’s trunk.  When Ivan did so, he was amazed to find it marked with carvings that looked very much like the ones on the apple wood walking stick Uilleam an t-Moireach had given him.

“After you left your walking stick behind,” Marfa Hudovna explained, “I thrust it into the ground to see what would happen.  When it began to set roots and send out new branches, I knew that as long as the tree throve, so would you.”

Ivan, finally realizing why the sack had never offered plums or apricots, replied, “This tree has helped me more than you know, gospozha.”

“I’m sure it has, dear,” said Marfa Hudovna, with a smile that led Ivan to suspect that she might actually know very well.

But as Marfa Hudovna had kept watch on the tree to learn how things went with Ivan, so Ivan had kept watch on Sherlock’s heart.  He knew it beat as strongly and regularly as ever, but as to where he might find Sherlock himself, Ivan could only hope that Marfa Hudovna might be able to offer advice.

“Sherlock...” he began.

“In the barn, dear.”  Her reply was so matter-of-fact that Ivan was briefly flummoxed.

“The barn?”

“He’s moulting, dear.”

***

After Ivan had seen to his stallion’s needs and washed the dust of the road off his face, he went out to the barn.  In the dim interior, he could just make out Sherlock, perched on a rail towards the back with his face turned away from the door.  Loose feathers littered the straw.

“I’m not hungry,” Sherlock declared at the sound of Ivan’s footfalls.

“That’s all right, for I haven’t brought you anything to eat,” replied Ivan equably.  He watched with some pleasure as Sherlock spun around so fast that he almost fell off the rail.  It had not been easy for Ivan these past couple of months, knowing that Sherlock lived but nothing else about how he might fare.

Sherlock glared at him a moment, then announced, “If you don’t want it, then give it to Marfa Hudovna.”

“What?”

“My heart.  You obviously came to return it.”

“Ah, no, that’s not it at all!” stammered Ivan, taken aback.

“Then why?”

Ivan was suddenly furious, all the more so because he himself wasn’t sure of his reasons for returning, at least not to put into words.  He’d only known that he _had_ to return.  To finally arrive and then have Sherlock so completely misunderstand was unbearable.

“I came back, you great berk, because you owe me an explanation!  ‘Later,’ you said.  Well, later is _now_ , so start explaining!”

“You mean to hold me to my _implied_ promise to explain Muircheartaigh’s statements.”  Sherlock’s tone was desert-dry.

“It was about as ‘implied’ as the nose on my face!  But if you like, I’ll start off.  You were apprenticed to Muircheartaigh.  He was murdering people in a place called London.  You found out and reported him to your brother’s guards, so I’m guessing your brother is someone reasonably well-off.  A boy was killed when the guards tried to capture Muircheartaigh.  Muircheartaigh stole your heart and escaped.”

“It’s amusing to listen to you gather all the facts in your hands and still be unable to arrange them in a way that makes any kind of sense,” Sherlock sneered.

“Tell me where I’m wrong, then!”

“Oh, no, please proceed.  As I said, I’m amused.”

“Victor Trevor was your friend, possibly your lover.”  Ivan saw Sherlock’s eyes widen, but the creature said nothing, so he continued.  “You asked him to help you retrieve your heart.  The attempt failed, he was captured, you escaped.”

“The ‘attempt’ was Victor’s idea,” Sherlock almost growled.  “He _wanted_ to be my lover.  I wasn’t interested.  He attributed my lack of interest to the absence of my heart – in which he was wrong – and proposed that we should retrieve it.  I accepted his help because I was young and foolish enough to believe that the two of us together could defeat Muircheartaigh.”

“You wanted revenge.”

“I wanted to stop a criminal and a murderer!  That was my goal from the first.  One of the many things you got wrong was that I offered myself as an apprentice _because_ I suspected Muircheartaigh of the murders.  I needed more information to confirm my suspicions.  When I had it, I informed my brother, who sent guards to assist me in arresting the sorcerer.” 

“In the ensuing fight, Muircheartaigh launched a spell intended to burn out my heart.  I managed to deflect the main force of the spell.  Muircheartaigh’s latest intended victim, whom I’d been trying to shield from the cross-fire, got caught in the path of the deflected spell and died.  And even the weakened effect of the spell was enough to give Muircheartaigh possession of my heart and trap me in my current form.”

His _current_ form, thought Ivan, surprised.  Up until now, he’d assumed that Sherlock’s glorious feathers and wings were natural to him.  It was unsettling – and saddening – to learn that this beauty was rooted in an evil curse.  Yet at the same time, Ivan couldn’t help wondering what Sherlock had looked like _before_ , couldn’t help imagining a tall, slender man with black hair instead of black plumes.  Black curls, maybe.  Sherlock’s pale face and hands suggested that he’d be pale, well, _all_ over.  With black curls.

But Sherlock was still speaking, so Ivan dragged his errant thoughts back from their wanderings.    

“The bungled arrest and Muircheartaigh’s escape had unpleasant repercussions, especially concerning my somewhat unofficial role.  The parents of the victim, Carl Powers, were all the more furious because he’d been only thirteen years old.  They claimed that I’d actually caused his death and demanded retribution.  My brother used my own youth as an argument to get them to accept a monetary payment in lieu of my imprisonment.”

“Your own...  How old were you?” asked Ivan.

“Fifteen.”

“At fifteen, you apprenticed yourself to a sorcerer whom you suspected of being a murderer in order to get more information?  Sweet gods, Sherlock, why didn’t you tell your brother of your suspicions and let him deal with it?”

“I tried.  He wouldn’t listen to me.  Later on, he claimed that he’d had the same suspicions and had been waiting until a more propitious moment to act.  He wouldn’t say how many more deaths he was willing to accept before this ‘moment’ arrived.” 

Ivan could imagine Sherlock at fifteen, brilliant and impatient, not yet old enough to be taken completely into his brother’s confidence – but old enough to take action on his own.

“How old were you when you met Victor?” he asked quietly.

“Twenty-two.  We had shared interests, spent time together.  I suppose we were friends.”

“But Victor wanted to be more.”

“Yes.  Muircheartaigh spoke truly, you know.  I did escape with Victor’s cries in my ears.  Victor was yelling for me to save myself and flee.  I would have ignored him if I could have thought of any way to save both of us, but I couldn’t, not at the time.  Later on...”

“Hindsight’s the plague of many a captain and commander,” said Ivan gently.  “On the field of battle, you make the best decisions you can.  If later on they turn out to have been mistaken, you try to learn from your mistakes.  It’s all you can do.”

Sherlock stared at him.  “Even at the time, I knew Muircheartaigh might have been willing to let Victor go if I’d offered myself instead.”

“But you wanted to live.  Most living beings do.  It’s not a crime, Sherlock.”

“Victor’s parents certainly seemed to think it was.  They wanted me executed.  They used the circumstances of Carl Power’s death to argue for this sentence and won the support of both the other nobles and the commoners.  My brother barely managed to arrange for me to be exiled instead.”

“Why didn’t your brother appeal to...  Does London have a tsar?  A king?  Who runs your government?”

“My brother,” Sherlock replied drily.  “London is a city-state.  My mother has held the throne for the past several decades.  In her old age, her formidable intellect has become... somewhat detached from the real world.  My brother effectively rules as prince regent.”

Ivan took a breath and tried to ignore the anger flaring in his gut.  “Your brother exiled you himself.”

“He’s my half-brother, to be precise.  And to avoid exiling me, he would have had to call in more political favours than he considered the situation to be worth.”

“Then he considered _you_ to be worth, you mean.”

“You’re angry,” Sherlock noted curiously.

“Yes, I’m angry!” Ivan retorted.  “Why aren’t you?”

Sherlock shrugged.  “We were only half-brothers – and never friends.  He did what he could.  I didn’t expect anything more and therefore was not disappointed.”

Ivan was still simmering, but what could he say?  That Sherlock _should_ have been disappointed?  Instead he kept his voice level and asked, “So what did you do then?”

“The lair to which Victor and I had tracked Muircheartaigh was cold and empty when I returned.  I set out to find the sorcerer again while at the same time gathering any information that might be useful in defeating him.  There wasn’t much.  I followed rumours, hints, wisps of data, bare traces of trails.  I did this... a long time.”

“What did you live on?” asked Ivan, hoping that Sherlock hadn’t been surviving on carrion like a crow. 

“Often enough I was able to make my way by doing people favours.”

Ivan’s mind promptly recalled the camp followers he’d known as a soldier.  “Er, what sort of favours?” he ventured.

“Not that sort.  Finding stolen objects or missing persons.  Getting people off criminal convictions.  There’s a tavern keeper in Arkhangelsk who’ll provide a free meal for me and anyone I bring with me at any time.  He stood accused of murder.”

After what Sherlock had told him about Muircheartaigh, Ivan couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  “You helped a murderer?”

“No, a thief.  I was able to prove that at the time a particularly vicious triple murder had been committed in Maymaksanskiy okrug, he’d been burgling a house in Novadvinsk.  Instead of being executed, he got off with branding.”

“Well done,” said Ivan drily.

“Occasionally I helped town magistrates solve crimes when they were out of their depth, which was always.  Sometimes I got paid for that.”

“Other times they forgot about you once the crimes were solved?”

“I was thinking more about the occasions on which I was run out of town.”

“Ah.”

“The risk was worth it as long as I could believe it was all part of my plan that to find and destroy Muircheartaigh.  But the longer I searched, the slimmer my chances of success seemed.  The forest provided a welcome respite from humanity and I took to spending more and more time there, sometimes going for months without speaking.” 

The picture Sherlock painted was so grim that Ivan attempted to lighten it with a joke. “Didn’t that get boring after a while?”

But Sherlock replied quite seriously.  “Humankind’s opinion of itself of overinflated.  Various other animals are at least as interesting – if not more so.  Personally, I find bees fascinating.”

Ivan was saved from having to attempt a reply when Marfa Hudovna appeared in the barn’s doorway.  “Come and have some supper, boys.  There’s borscht.”

“I ate this morning,” said Sherlock sulkily.

“That’s fine, dear, but if you’re not eating, will you at least come in and check whatever you’ve got going on in your laboratory?  There’s a very odd smell coming out of it.”

Sherlock’s dark brows drew together.  “It shouldn’t be doing that yet.”  He hopped off the rail and swooped out the door, barely missing Marfa Hudovna.  A train of loose feathers floated in his wake.

“Sherlock has a laboratory?”

“Certainly he does, dear.  It was the first thing he set up when he arrived here.  Now come along, _you_ must be hungry after all that riding.”


	8. Chapter 8

When Ivan entered the house, he immediately noticed a pungent, metallic odor.  It seemed to be coming from a door to one side of the kitchen that he’d previously thought led to a storage room.

A loaf of rye bread and dishes of butter and sour cream already sat out on the table.  Marfa Hudovna dished out two large bowls of borscht, and they sat down to eat.  After a moment, Ivan began to chuckle.  When Marfa Hudovna looked at him curiously, he explained, “It’s so _Sherlock_ that the first thing he would do on arriving in your house would be to set up a laboratory – and that he’d persuade you to let him!”

But Marfa Hudovna smiled and shook her head.  “It was his house first, dear.  I had some trouble where I was living, and...  Well, it’s a long story.  I don’t know if you care to hear it?”

Ivan couldn’t have said no even if the invitation hadn’t been so obvious.  Any bit of information he could glean about Sherlock’s past seemed vitally important.      

“I knew Sherlock and his brother as boys,” she began.  “I was head cook in their mother’s household.  The boys were always about the kitchens, Mycroft – that’s the brother – to cadge sweets and Sherlock, I think he was just looking for a place where he could watch people rather than be watched _by_ them.”

Remembering his own childhood in his father’s court, Ivan nodded.

“Mycroft was already grown and Sherlock an adolescent by the time I married and left the household.  Their mother gave me a generous marriage gift.  With the money I’d already saved up over the years, it was enough to purchase a house on Baker Street.  You would say, ulitsa Pekarnaya.”

Ivan blinked.  “Not to be offensive, but – Marfa Hudovna Pekarnskaya isn’t your real name, is it?”   

“No, dear, but it’s easier for people here to say,” Marfa Hudovna replied composedly.  “My husband Boris was from this country.  Oh, he was a fine-looking man!  And when we first married, he treated me like a queen.  But after that nasty business with the Powers boy, Sherlock left the court, ah, his mother’s household.”  She shot Ivan a quick glance, as if to see if he’d noticed the slip.

“It’s all right, gospozha.  Sherlock already told me who his mother is.”

Marfa Hudovna looked relieved and continued with her tale.  “The house was really too large for just Boris and myself, so I rented out the top floor to Sherlock.  Boris... he wasn’t a learned man.  He didn’t understand Sherlock’s studies and experiments.  Of course I don’t either, but I enjoy listening to him talk about them.  Boris seemed to feel... resentful?  Shamed?  It didn’t help that Sherlock’s not always careful about what he says to others.” 

Ivan couldn’t help chuckling at her judicious phrasing.

“After Sherlock, ah, left...”

“Was exiled?”

“Just so, dear.  After that I thought Boris might calm down a bit, but the truth was that he wasn’t prospering in London, not as he had hoped.  Finally he decided that we should return to his home town, Tsvetovsk.  He wanted me to sell the house on Baker Street, but I refused and instead arranged for my friend Marie Turner to manage it in my absence.”

“After we returned to live with Boris’ family in Tsvetovsk, things... didn’t go well.  Boris was angry all the time.  He drank too much and got even angrier when I said so.  His family blamed everything on me, the foreign wife.  When Boris began to hit me, no one would listen.” 

She took a deep breath and was quiet a moment.  Not sure what to say, Ivan reached out and touched her hand.  She smiled slightly and continued.

“There was a brawl in the local tavern.  Boris was involved.  Afterwards, one of the other men who’d been there turned up dead.  The circumstances weren’t clear and all sorts of rumours were flying about.  One of them was that Boris had killed the other man.  I couldn’t help thinking that if this were proved true, Boris might be executed for murder.”  She looked at Ivan defiantly.  “I’m not ashamed of thinking that.”

“Nor should you be.  A person who beats their spouse deserves nothing better.”

“I didn’t know where Sherlock was, but I’d always... had the means to send him a message.” 

Muircheartaigh had called her a hedge-witch, Ivan remembered.

“I did that.  He showed up in town, not saying that he knew me, and was able to find enough evidence to convince the magistrates that Boris had murdered the other man.”

“Marfa Hudovna, the way you say that...  _Did_ your husband...”

“I don’t know, dear.  I don’t want to know.  Boris was executed.  His family threw me out, but I’d been expecting that.  So had Sherlock, for he came and got me.  He said he was living in an abandoned hunting lodge in a forest and asked me to come keep house for him.  When I got here, it turned out that he’d got his laboratory nicely set up, and beyond that hadn’t done one thing to repair or even clean the house at all!  I still remember how proud he was as he showed it to me and asked me what I thought of it.”  She was smiling now.

“And what did you say?”

“I told him that it could be very nice indeed – with a bit of work, which he could be sure that he was helping me with!  Truth be told, Sherlock’s not very handy, but he’s good at taking things apart to see how they _should_ work and often as not he’s able to put them back together as well.  Between us, we managed well enough.  You should have seen him flying about the roof, patching the holes and cleaning out the gutters!”

Ivan started to laugh at the picture she drew, and Marfa Hudovna joined in.  When they’d both quieted, she added, “He’s a good man, Ivan Watovich.  He has a good heart.”

“I know,” replied Ivan soberly, “I’m carrying it.”

The door to the laboratory banged open and the subject of their conversation stalked out, carrying a pile of books, papers and an ink pot.  “An excess of catalyst!” Sherlock declared.  He deposited the pile on top of a low cabinet, spread the pages out and began to leaf through one of the books, muttering to himself and making notes as he went.  He had a long black smudge down his aristocratic nose and, Ivan noted bemusedly, appeared to be using one of his own feathers as a pen.

This Sherlock was different from and yet congruent to the wild and magical creature Ivan had first met.  In him, Ivan could see what the boy and the young man Marfa Hudovna described had become, and what Ivan saw made his own heart grow warm within him.

Marfa Hudovna was up from the table, bustling about and making tea.  She poured glasses of tea for herself and Ivan and set a third glass and a plate with a buttered slice of rye bread within Sherlock’s reach before resuming her seat at the table.

“Do you find it lonely, living all the way out here?” Ivan asked her.  “It’s a bit far from the nearest town or even village.”

“Only if you go by the road, dear,” she replied – and winked.  “I have friends in Svyatoy Varfolomeyevsk and spend many a pleasant afternoon there.”

“I see.”  He glanced over at Sherlock’s bowed head.  “The tests – the field of rye, the well, the pile of wood – I take it that these were your idea then?”  Out of the corner of his eye, Ivan saw Sherlock look up suddenly, an indignant expression on his face.

“Those were a joint effort, dear.  People kept showing up, you see, asking for Sherlock’s help.  But he’s only one man, he can’t do everything himself” – the indignation on Sherlock’s face increased in intensity, but Marfa Hudovna forged blithely on – “and they often weren’t well-suited to handle the sort of thing involved in helping him help _them_.”

“Andreyev, for example?” suggested Ivan.

“Poor Andreyev was far from the worst, dear.  Some of them ran away screaming the first time they saw Sherlock.”

Ran away screaming.  The phrase nagged at Ivan for a moment and then he had it.  “The dance he did in the clearing – that was one of the tests, wasn’t it?  He was trying to scare me away.”

“I wasn’t trying all that hard,” snapped Sherlock.

Marfa Hudovna ignored him.  “That was one of the first tests we instituted, dear.  But we added others as people kept coming...”

“Muircheartaigh was sending them,” Sherlock growled.  “It took me longer than it should have to deduce that.  I’d stopped looking for him and he was bored, so he used these people to draw me out.  He’d orchestrate events that caused a village or household to set someone on the road.  Once that person was underway, Muircheartaigh would set a binding on them that drew them ever eastward.  He led them to me with rumours and stories planted by his agents, but the binding ensured that sooner or later, whether in my company or alone, they would come to Muircheartaigh.”

“Wait a moment, you told me something like that before.  The night before we invaded the castle – you told me that’s how Muircheartaigh got his slaves.”

“Yes, once they arrived, he put them to use.”

“So you thought you’d ‘put them to use’ first, try using them to help you against Muircheartaigh?”  Ivan regretted his accusatory phrasing as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“They were headed for Muircheartaigh _anyway_ ,” Sherlock snapped.  “Victor and I had already come close to defeating him, and I’d gained additional knowledge of the sorcerer in my travels.  I had every reason to believe that with a competent assistant, I could defeat him.  But... they kept getting captured.”

Sherlock’s voice was bitter and angry.  It almost sounded as he were angry at the captives themselves.  But Marfa Hudovna said softly, “It hurt.  It hurt each time.  We instituted tests for those who could pass them.  And we tried to warn the others away.”

“They never listened,” said Sherlock.  “They couldn’t.  The binding wouldn’t let them.  And even the ones who passed the tests never worked out.”

“Finally you stopped trying.” Ivan took care to keep his tone gentle, unaccusing.  Faced with choices that ranged from horrific to worse, Sherlock had focused on destroying the mastermind behind the whole miserable situation.  Could Ivan be sure he himself would have chosen better?  “You hid from them and let them pass on eastwards.  You gave up on regaining your heart.”

“No, I gave up on destroying _Muircheartaigh’s_ heart.  I haven’t had a heart since I was fifteen.  Readapting to having one now would just slow me down.  Even my brother, who presumably _does_ have one, claims that caring is not an advantage.”  

“This would be the brother who’d rather exile you himself than call on political favours?  I’m not impressed with him.”

Sherlock’s lips quirked.  The expression was not a smile and did not reach his eyes.  “He is, perhaps, not all that impressive.”

“Why test me, then?  Why was I different?”

“Misha Kamen’brodsky seems to have taken that upon himself.” Sherlock sounded – put upon?  A bit testy, perhaps, at having to admit that he’d been unable to deduce Misha’s motives.

“A field of ripe rye needs to be harvested, dear, whether it’s for a test or not.  You came along while Misha was working, and he recognized you.”

Ivan blinked, surprised.   

Marfa Hudovna smiled.  “He sees more than he says, Misha does.  He’d heard stories of you from men returned from fighting in the southern mountains, so he took it on himself to test you.  You passed, so he sent you on to Manya Bocharova, and when you passed her test as well, she sent you to me.”  She got up again and began to tend to the wood stove.

“Why did _you_ agree to test me?” Ivan asked Sherlock.

Sherlock shrugged.  “I tested you because I trust Marfa Hudovna.  I _accepted_ you because when you told me your story, you had the intelligence to tell me everything that was important – and to omit anything that was dull and insignificant.”

“Like my father’s name and title,” Ivan grinned.

“Precisely.  You were... interesting.  Travelling with you was interesting.  Where others had been afraid or angry, you were amazed.  Fighting beside you was...  If heroes exist, Ivan Watovich, you might well be one of them.”  Sherlock was still not smiling, but his earlier bitterness had passed, replaced by a sort of sombre calm.  He gazed at Ivan as if memorizing Ivan’s features. As if he thought Ivan would be leaving soon.

“And now you’ve had an extremely complete version of the explanation I promised you.  Marfa Hudovna has gone to prepare a bed for you.” Ivan looked about, surprised that the lady was indeed gone from the room, as Sherlock continued speaking.  “Good night, Ivan Watovich.”

Sherlock began to gather up his books and papers, but looked up again as Ivan took a step forward.  He took yet another step, and still Sherlock did not move either forward – or back.  A third step and Ivan could place his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders.  “Sherlock, I am not Victor.  I will not woo importunately, and we need never discuss this again.  If you wish me to carry your heart, I’ll do that.  If I might live with you and Marfa Hudovna as your friend, I would like that.  If you wish me to leave...  I’ll do that too.  But before you make any final decisions, I ask you to consider this.”

With that he rose up on his toes and kissed Sherlock full on the lips, yet chastely and gently.  When he drew back, Sherlock stared at him a moment, then turned back to the books and papers.  Ivan couldn’t tell if Sherlock was avoiding his gaze or just more interested in the books and papers.  Shaking his head, he went to find out where Marfa Hudovna had bestowed him for the night.

***

Ivan woke early, while it was still dark.  He dressed carefully in a clean shirt and trousers, but left aside his surcoat and sword, for he would not be travelling far.  He retrieved the case with Sherlock’s heart and feathers from his saddlebags.  When he went down to the kitchen, Marfa Hudovna was already at the stove.

“I’ll have breakfast ready when you get back, dear.”  She looked him up and down, then nodded.  “Luck be with you.”

The eastern sky was beginning to turn from black to purple.  The first hesitant strains of birdsong were rising from the dark forest.  Despite the half-light, Ivan had no trouble making out the stone-lined path. He followed it to the birch grove and looked up to scan the trees, relieved when he spotted the dark shape perched high in the branches.  He hadn’t been sure until that moment that Sherlock would choose to show himself.

With a rush of air, Sherlock swooped to ground, landing only a few feet in front of Ivan.  “I can not guarantee,” Sherlock said tersely, “that this will work.”

“And yet the attempt itself is worth something,” Ivan returned.

“I wasn’t referring only to the restoration of my heart, Ivan Watovich.”

“Neither was I, Sherlock Holmes.”

When Sherlock said nothing further, Ivan opened the case.  He saw Sherlock’s eyebrows go up at the sight of the four feathers tucked in next to the heart, but he could not tell read Sherlock’s expression at all.  Was it surprise?  Amusement?  Puzzlement?  Or perhaps a mixture of all three?

But Sherlock said only, “You’ll need the black feather.”

Ivan selected the black feather, but when he would have handed it to Sherlock, Sherlock shook his head.  “I said that _you_ will need the black feather.  This is your job to do, Ivan Watovich – if you’re still willing.”

“Another bloody test, is it?” growled Ivan.

“Hopefully it will not be particularly bloody,” Sherlock replied evenly.  “Part the feathers where my heart should be, so that you can see the skin underneath.”

White skin, paler even than Sherlock’s face and hands, which at least saw the sun occasionally.

“Now draw the point of shaft down the skin in a vertical line, pressing firmly.”

The line shone white on white for a moment, then started to flush rosy red.

“Set the feather down, for you’re going to need both hands.  Good.  Now place one hand on either side of the line, and pull the two sides gently apart.”

Ivan did so and gasped when skin, muscle and bone split neatly along the line he had drawn, revealing a cavity underneath.  There was, oddly enough, no blood.

“Sweet gods, Sherlock, you need a surgeon for this job!”

“I need someone I can trust.  I ask you again, Ivan Watovich, are you willing?”

“I think we’ve got past that point, Sherlock.  You’re standing there with a great hole gaping open in your chest.  I take it that this is the part where I pick your heart up?”

This time the look on Sherlock’s face was definitely amusement.  “Problem?”

Ivan ignored him and lifted the beating heart gingerly from the case.  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but the muscle felt warm and firm beneath his fingertips.  He was reminded not so much of the stench and gore of battlefield wounds as of a young animal just born.  A newborn puppy perhaps, not able to survive on its own, requiring gentleness and care.

It was only when Sherlock shifted slightly that Ivan realized he’d fallen into a reverie, staring at Sherlock’s heart in his hands.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and fitted the heart carefully into the cavity in Sherlock’s chest.  For an awful moment its rhythm stumbled, but then it resuming beating steadily.

“The red feather now,” said Sherlock.  His voice was slightly hoarse and his breath came rapidly, but he shook his head impatiently at Ivan’s look of concern.  “I’m fine, but quickly!  Hold the edges of the incision together with one hand and draw the red feather down along it...  Good.  Again... again...  A third time.”

The incision was completely closed now, its purplish-red colour fading rapidly.  Ivan bent to place the feather back into the case, but when he looked up again Sherlock was shaking, vibrating from head to toe with a rapid tremour.

“Sherlock!” cried Ivan, but the speed of the vibrations increased, faster and faster until Sherlock was shimmering, blurring before his eyes.

Ivan thought he should run and get Marfa Hudovna but he could not tear himself away, could only watch in horror as the dark, shimmering _shape_ that had been Sherlock started to become paler in colour, as the form that Muircheartaigh’s spell had trapped him in started to give way to something new.

Just as the first rays of the sun came over the horizon, the shimmering abruptly ceased.  Before Ivan stood a tall, slender man, finely made, his pale skin translucent in the light of the new day.  His face and hands, his silver grey eyes, were entirely familiar.  Ivan had guessed correctly about the black curls.

Sherlock was as stunningly beautiful in this form as he had been as a bird.  Even more, his human shape was _possible_ in a way that the other had not been.  Ivan had long looked on his companion with appreciation and a fair bit of awe, but the growing warmth he now felt in the pit of his belly was new – and not unwelcome, at least not to him.  What Sherlock might be feeling, he had no idea, and so he stood quite still, waiting to see what Sherlock would do.

Sherlock stood still as well, studying Ivan.  He took a step forward... a second... a third.  Then he placed his hands on Ivan’s shoulders – copying Ivan’s actions of the previous evening, Ivan realized – bent his head down and kissed Ivan on the lips, chastely and with surprising awkwardness, as clumsy as a youth...

Ah.  As clumsy as a youth of fifteen with his first lover.  When Sherlock started to draw back, Ivan placed his hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck, feeling those curls brush against his knuckles, and tugged forward once, gently, prepared to release Sherlock immediately if the hint was not taken.  But Sherlock bent his mouth to Ivan’s again quite willingly and just as willingly let Ivan guide the kiss, slotting their lips together.

This time it was Ivan who started to draw back and Sherlock who would not allow it, so Ivan deepened the kiss, licking along the seam of Sherlock’s full lips until they parted.  He felt rather than heard Sherlock’s gasp as their tongues touched and stroked, as Ivan’s hands followed the rhythm of their tongues in stroking the knobs of Sherlock’s spine, as Sherlock’s hips rocked in that same rhythm against Ivan’s belly.

He would have offered Sherlock his thigh to thrust against, but the height difference made that awkward.  He remembered himself at fifteen, though, and when they were finally forced to draw apart slightly for the sake of breathing, he reached down and gently ran his hand along Sherlock’s length.  Sherlock dropped his face against Ivan’s neck and _whimpered_ , such a startling sound that Ivan couldn’t resist provoking it again – and again.  He built up a rhythm, alternating strokes and squeezes, running his thumb over plump, weeping tip as Sherlock gasped and shook against him, long fingers clawing at Ivan’s back.

“Sherlock, Sherlock,” whispered Ivan, turning his head to kiss a cheekbone, an ear, whatever he could reach.  He reached down with his other hand to cradle Sherlock’s balls, felt them drawing up.

“Can’t, _can’t_ ,” Sherlock moaned.

“Yes you can, love, come on now,” and with a high, fierce cry, Sherlock did.  Ivan stroked him through it, stopping only when Sherlock reached down to bat his hand away.  Then Ivan cradled Sherlock against him, letting the other man catch his breath.

“You,” Sherlock began.

“Yes, love, I’m here.”

“No, _you_ ,” repeated Sherlock, and clarified his meaning by reaching for the front of Ivan’s trousers.  At first his grip was awkward and his rhythm jerky, but he accepted Ivan’s guidance willingly and became more proficient with surprising speed, improvising new twists and slides that drove Ivan higher and higher until his wings melted in the sun and he tumbled back to earth, crying out Sherlock’s name as he fell.

Afterwards, they wiped each other off as best they could with dew-wet leaves.  When Sherlock would have headed back to the house, Ivan stopped him and pulled the shirt off his own back to tie around Sherlock’s hips.  He laughed at Sherlock’s expression.

“You haven’t had to think about clothes since you were fifteen, have you?” Ivan chuckled.

“I don’t recall thinking about them much before then, either,” retorted Sherlock.  His eyes roamed Ivan’s upper body, settling on the left shoulder.

Ivan winced.  “I’d forgot you hadn’t seen it before.  It’s a bit of mess, isn’t it?” 

But Sherlock grinned.  “ _Not_ what I was thinking,” he purred.  And then in a completely different tone, “Come on!”  He took off at a run down the path, the curves of his pale buttocks flashing in the sunlight as the shirt flapped back and forth.  Ivan shook his head, but ran after him.

When they reached the house, Sherlock bounded into the kitchen yelling.  “Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson!”

The lady in question shrieked and vanished down the hallway, returning a moment later with a large sheet.  “You wrap yourself in this, Sherlock Holmes.  I’ll go into Svyatoy Varfolomeyevsk tomorrow and have some clothes made for you, but in the meantime you can’t go running around naked.”

“I’m not naked, I’m wearing Ivan’s shirt!” Sherlock proclaimed.  Ivan felt his own face heating up.

“Yes, dear, I see that,” said Marfa Hudovna.  “That would be why he’s half-naked himself – not that it’s an ill sight to see.”

By now Ivan was sure his face was scarlet, but he mustered what dignity he could.  “I’ve got a spare shirt and trousers in my saddlebags.  They’ll be too short in the sleeves and legs for Sherlock, but they might do for now?”

“Fine, spasibo – Mrs. Hudson, we’re returning to London!  But not court, it’s boring and neither of us likes it.  Will you rent us rooms at Baker Street?”

“Of course, dear, but have you _asked_ Ivan if he wants to go to London?”

“Why wouldn’t he?  It’s never boring – well, almost never.  Ivan, there are new crimes committed there every day.  Most people blunder around the city and all they see are streets and shops and carriages.  But underneath the commonplaces, London is a battlefield.  When you walk with me you’ll see that.  I can show you.”

“It sounds irresistible,” replied Ivan in a dry tone, but when Sherlock glanced at him in question, he smiled and shook his head.  “Sherlock, I followed you to Muircheartaigh’s castle and then I followed you back here _despite_ your attempt to leave me behind.  I’ll go where you go, you great idiot!”

Late that night, after a long day sweetly spent, Ivan and Sherlock lay curled together in the bed where Ivan had slept alone the night before.  Marfa Hudovna had been notably careful to assure them that her own room was a good ways off and that she was a sound sleeper.  Sherlock seemed puzzled, but Ivan was thankful.

“I’m glad I kept your feathers,” Ivan murmured, already drifting towards sleep.

“They were useful,” agreed Sherlock, nuzzling Ivan’s hair.

“They were, but also – well, since I’ll never see them on you again – I mean, not that I regret that!  But...  All right, what are you snickering about?”

“I did tell you that Mycroft was my _half_ -brother,” said Sherlock with a grin.  “Her Majesty my mother was notably adventurous when she was younger.  My firebird form comes to me from my father by right of birth.”

Ivan was wide awake now.  “But you said it was part of Muircheartaigh’s curse!”

“No, I said that his curse trapped me in that form.  Without my heart, I couldn’t switch back and forth as I had always done.  And as now I can do once more.  Ivan...”  Ivan felt the rumble of Sherlock’s whisper in his ear, the vibration of Sherlock’s chest against his back.  “Ivan, I can still take you flying.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” said Ivan Watovich.

And he did.


End file.
